


Dust Devils

by halyo



Series: A Town Called San Adrestia [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Action & Romance, Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Western, Angst, Blood and Injury, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religious Content, Shootouts, Slow Burn, Wild West, bible bashing times y'all, stick the cowboy music on folks we're in for a wild ride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:00:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23162899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halyo/pseuds/halyo
Summary: San Adrestia, New Mexico1875An outlaw dressed in black, tracking across the state and leaving a trail of blood in his wake. A white-haired woman who comes to town under cover of darkness, wearing the Crest of Flames at her back. A singer trapped in a saloon, waiting for a rich man to steal her away to the life she desires. A princess, a brawler, a doctor, a recluse.And Ferdinand, sheriff of a small town out on the frontier, the rope of corruption and deceit tightening around his throat.Or: The Black Eagles western AU I wrote because I'm cowboy trash.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Petra Macneary, Ferdinand von Aegir/Dorothea Arnault, Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: A Town Called San Adrestia [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712188
Comments: 43
Kudos: 140





	1. Chapter 1

San Adrestia, New Mexico 

October 1875

There were a lot of reasons why folks came out West.

Some were looking for adventure, the thrill of conquering the new frontier. Some were running from their old lives, disappearing into the barrens to start it all again. Some of them were just looking for the kind of freedom that didn’t come from the bottom of a bottle or the barrel of a gun.

The town of San Adrestia had a population of three hundred and forty-five, with another two on the way. It had been founded on a patch of fertile land along an unfinished railway line, and people had flocked to the town in their masses. After the war there were plenty of men looking for somewhere to lie low and forget the horrors of years past, and this was the perfect little backwater town to do it. 

It’s why the bar was packed to capacity. Sure, it was only the usual Saturday night crowd, but Ferdinand knew what enough whiskey could do even to the most rational of men. He hasn’t taken to wearing the sheriff’s star, not yet, but his trusty six-shooter hangs at his hip. It was only a matter of time until his father appointed him, of that much Ferdinand was sure.

He’d taken on many of the lawman’s responsibilities, doing all the riding and fighting that the ageing sheriff no longer could. The people seemed to like him, and he took great pride in his duty. But there were still bandits and vagabonds out here in the wastes, plenty of men ‘just passing through’ a town they thought the law couldn’t reach.

It’s why he’s still on duty, even now. He’s relaxed a little, of course, glass of that newfangled bourbon whiskey in hand. But his eyes still scan the crowd like a hawk, on the lookout for trouble. 

The saloon houses sixty men or thereabouts, tables dotted around the downstairs floor. Most of them he knows, but there are a few strangers making use of the inn on their way to Albuquerque, El Paso, the Faerghus territories. Tobacco smoke and dust hang heavy in the air, the memories of many a brawl held in the wood panelling with the bullet holes and scorch marks. Whiskey-stained circles mark the tables. As for the upstairs, that isn’t for drinking: no, that area is reserved for a different kind of service. Two ladies lean against the wall at the top of the stairs, making eyes at the men below.

But there’s no point trying to attract attention. The eyes of every man are fixed firmly elsewhere. And as much as he’s loath to admit it, Ferdinand is no better.

Music, accompanied by the voice of an angel. Dorothea is perched on the end of the piano, ankles crossed, painted lips filling the night with song. Soft red fabric is draped across her body, the dress beneath tied tight at her waist then left loose to flow to the ground. Her eyes are wide and full of stars. 

She’d performed every Saturday night since she turned seventeen, waiting for the city men that pass through to notice her and whisk her away to a life of luxury.

She’s already picked her target. A man twice her age and clearly wealthy: golden rings adorn his fingers, a fine cigar burning on the ashtray in front of him. He’s flanked by a hired gun at both sides, but Dorothea is undeterred. She slides off the piano sleek as a marten, slowly making her way over to his table and singing all the while. The soft foxfur around her neck falls to the ground as she walks. Her heels click against the wooden floor in time to the music, her hips sway, her silken hair falling in neat ringlets around her face.

The man obviously likes what he sees. As she breaks for another verse, he raises his wrist, twirling one finger around. Dorothea giggles, duly complying with a spin around, her dress flaring as she does. 

Ferdinand averts his eyes. Unlike Dorothea, he has an ounce of decorum in him.

Turning up the charm, she carries on with her song, sauntering over to the man and leaning back on his table. She runs her finger around the rim of his tumbler, then lifts it to her lips. It leaves a red lipstick stain against the glass.

She croons the final notes of the song, the music finishes to a polite smattering of applause, and Dorothea signals for the pianist to take five minutes. She’s busy.

Ferdinand can just about hear their conversation over the chatter. 

“Now what’s a-bringing you to San Adrestia, handsome?” she asks, crossing and uncrossing her legs again.

“Just passing through,” comes the reply, something they’ve all heard a thousand times. 

She giggles. “A man of mystery, I see. You come from the city?”

“I have business there. Here seemed like a good place to stay the night,” he replies with a nod, looking her over, “and now I am most glad I did.”

“Now what sorta business, if you don’t mind me asking?”

The man scowls. “Nothing you need concern yourself with, my dear.”

“Of course,” Dorothea replies, flicking her hair over her shoulder. She dials the charm up to eleven, letting him catch a glimpse of what is hidden beneath the thin fabric of her dress. “The name’s Dorothea, by the way. I’m charmed.”

“It is a most beautiful name,” the man replies, pressing a kiss to her outstretched fingers. “Just as beautiful as that voice of yours. Say, in the cities of the North, I’d have you on the stage of an opera house, singing for the world.”

Dorothea’s eyes light up. But she stifles her excitement, instead letting out a girlish giggle. She tosses her hair again, exposing the low cut of her dress. Her legs are extended, oh-so provocative. Just the sight of her makes heat blossom in Ferdinand’s chest, and he stares into his whiskey to push the feeling away. But Dorothea’s conversation rings loud in his ears, her voice raised in excitement. 

“You really think that?”

The man nods. He leans in close to her, whispering something in her ear. One of his hands starts to creep towards her, but Dorothea just throws her head back and laughs again, then shakes her head. She slides off the table, strolling back towards the stage. But the man is undeterred. He reaches out to touch her, one hand wrapping around her wrist, the other grabbing a handful of her skirts--

Everything changes in a heartbeat.

Dorothea pivots on her heel, snapping forward and wrenching the man’s arm into a painful hold. The cronies at his side both pull out pistols and point them straight at her. 

Ferdinand’s hand is on his six-shooter before he knows what he’s doing. The bar is hushed into silence. Everyone’s eyes are on Dorothea again, but now for an altogether different reason.

“Don’t think we won’t, lady.” One of the men growls, gesturing with his gun. “Let him go, now. Nice an’ easy.”

That honeyed songstress’ voice is gone, now, replaced with cold steel. Dorothea stares down the man, twisting his wrist around a little further. Her fingernails sink into soft flesh. “That weren’t very nice of you,” she whispers, almost disapproving. “Were you never told it’s rude to pull your weapon on a lady?”

Tension crackles in the air. Ferdinand has to step in before this goes any further.

He strides forward, placing himself in the line of fire. One of his hands is raised in truce, the other on his hip, an inch above the six-shooter of his own. His heart races.

“Gentleman, please,” he starts, voice even. He sounds a lot calmer than he feels, but neither of the men budge. “You seem like you are men of reason. You are better than this--”

“Let Arundel go. Then we’ll talk.”

Ferdinand has had this conversation before. “Now it says on the door there, you can look but don’t touch. Dorothea can get a little fiery if people do not abide by the house rules.” He doesn’t have to turn around to feel her disapproving gaze on his back, but he does anyway. Outwardly she’s a very picture of grace, but the fire in her eyes is hot enough to burn a hole through his skull. Still, it isn’t the first time he’s had to bail her out of this situation, and it likely won’t be the last. He turns his attention back to the men. “There are ladies here who would be happy to take a dollar or two should you wish to indulge yourself, but Dorothea is not one of them.”

“She sure was acting like it.”

He shakes his head. “You look like educated folk to me. Put down your weapons, the lady will let your man go, and we can all continue with our night. Does that sound fair?”

The two men exchange a look. Both lower their weapons, but they’re not yet willing to put their guns away until Dorothea has upheld her end of the bargain. Ferdinand eyes the guns placed on the table, still locked and loaded.

“Dorothea,” he warns. 

She frowns, but releases her hold on the man’s arm. He hisses in pain, retreating his hand back to his chest as if he’s been stung. If looks could kill, Dorothea would be in trouble. But thankfully they can’t, and she’s safe.

For now.

Ferdinand nods in recognition. He places a couple of dollars down on the table. “Thank you. Gentlemen, have a drink on me, but I shall bid you goodnight. Dorothea, I need a word. Outside. Alone.”

This time, she doesn’t protest. He orders double doubles at the bar with a flick of his wrist, then lets her lead him upstairs past the locked rooms. They end up on her balcony, leaning against the balustrade and staring out at the sunset. The sun hangs low and burning above the horizon, the sky a canvas of oranges and salmon pinks, slowly fading to the midnight blue above.

Downstairs the music begins again, the tinkling of piano keys above the patrons' chatter.

Ferdinand holds a glass of house whiskey in each hand. Wordlessly, he hands it over as a peace offering. It’s warm and cheap and bitter, but Dorothea still takes a good, long sip before turning back to him.

“Ferdie,” she starts in her best affectionate voice, but he isn’t having any of it. 

“You have to stop doing this,” he says. He can sense Dorothea’s frustration already, but he continues on, regardless. “How many times has this happened, Dorothea? How much longer before your ambition gets you hurt, or worse?”

Her response is sharp as rattler venom. “Don’t talk down to me, Ferdie. What was it that you said -- that I get a bit ‘fiery’, hm? Perhaps you should walk a couple miles in my shoes, see how far that gets you.”

“What if they hurt you?” he asks again, and she shakes her head. Her laugh is like the toll of the Garreg Mach church bells. 

“You worry too much. I can look after myself just fine.”

“There were three of them, Dorothea. I have no doubt of your skills, but I struggle to see how you would come out on top against three armed men.”

She doesn’t have an answer to that. Instead she takes another sip from her glass, her body perched against the balustrade like a bird waiting to take flight. The tumbler is cradled in her hands, almost-empty all of a sudden. Ferdinand tries to fill the silence.

“You are--” 

He trails off, unsure how to say it. Clearing his throat doesn’t help, nor does another sip of whiskey. He has never struggled with his words, but something about her makes his voice catch in his throat.

“You are dear to me,” he says eventually. “I only want what is best for you.”

“Then perhaps you should let me--” Dorothea counters, but she shakes her head. Her lips are pressed together in thought, but she doesn’t yield anything else. No, she stands up again, and just like that the vulnerability is gone, back to her usual confident smile and easygoing stance like nothing has happened. “Oh, never mind me,” she says, offhand. “Think nothing of it.”

Ferdinand doesn’t press any further. They both stand in silence for a while, unsure of what to say. Crickets chirp in the dry evening air, coyotes howling out in the barrens beyond. He twirls the whiskey in his glass. Dorothea has already finished hers. She wanders back into her bedroom and he follows without a word. 

“You know--” he starts softly, but he’s cut off.

“Sir!”

Caspar Bergliez, running as fast as his scrawny legs will allow. Ferdinand turns around, watching as the wiry figure bursts into the saloon, running between the tables and haring up the stairs. “Sir!” he calls again, taking the steps two at a time. “Mister von Aegir, Ferdinand, sir, you gotta come quick--”

“Caspar,” Ferdinand replies quietly, raising a hand to try and halt the boy’s train of thought. It doesn’t matter that there is only a year between them, nor that Caspar has recently turned twenty. Ferdinand will always think of him as the excitable, unruly boy he had been when they’d first met. 

Not that he’s changed much since. 

“What is the matter?”

“Two travellers just entered the town from the North. They looked real suspicious, sir, covering their faces like they didn’t wanna be seen. But I saw everything, both of ‘em coming in with the night--”

Ferdinand shakes his head. “I see no reason why we shouldn’t allow travellers to seek refuge here--”

“You don’t get it, sir. One of them -- a short lady, real short, shorter than me I swear -- she was wearing a red cloak or something, all regal-like, and it had that flame crest painted all over it.”

His heart skips a beat. Fear starts to inch up his throat, anticipation and uncertainty and _fear._ He eyes the whiskey in his hand, then finishes the rest of the drink in one, ignoring the sharp kick as it goes down. 

His voice is hushed to a whisper. “The Crest of Flames?”

Exhausted, Caspar nods. His hands are on his knees as he tries to get his breath back. “I ain’t never been so sure of anything, sir.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Linhardt was real interested in it. Can’t remember why, I weren’t listening, but I--”

“Show me where they are.”

Caspar nods again. If he notices -- or indeed cares -- that Ferdinand and Dorothea are stood alone in her room, he doesn’t mention it. “Sure thing, sir, right away. Follow me!”

The journey out to the edge of town is much shorter on horseback. Caspar holds his hand up, and Ferdinand tugs on the mare’s reins to slow her down. The horse whinnies softly in protest, but duly comes to a halt.

Every building casts a long shadow in the dying light, dark enough that the hoofprints are hard to track. There’s not quite enough sunset-light to get by. Ferdinand dismounts, staring at the dirt. He fishes a lamp and a box of matches from his panniers, the flame burning low at first, but slowly spilling out enough to illuminate a trail of hoofprints leading into town. The lamp can't replace the sun, no, but it sure helps.

“This is them?”

“Yessir. Man and a woman, one black horse, one white--” 

“Grey,” Ferdinand corrects.

“--masked up, the both of ‘em. Weren’t carrying no light, just sneaking around like they were up to no good. And they ain’t no bandits, either, not from what I could see.”

“Right.” He starts to follow the prints in the dust before the wind blows them away. The tracks are smeared in places, but there’s still a distinct trail. Any later and any trace of the duo would have disappeared into the night.

Still, Caspar is undeterred. “So we gonna go fight ‘em, or what?”

“Let us not be hasty,” Ferdinand warns. “It may simply be that they are coming in late. We should not jump to a false judgement.”

He gets a pout in reply. It really was difficult to see Caspar as anything but an overeager fourteen-year-old, no matter how much he tried to convince people otherwise.

“Fine,” Caspar cedes, spitting into the dirt. “But I’m coming with ya. You’re gonna need my help if things go sour.”

“Do you even know why we are looking into these two?” he asks, and Caspar shakes his head. 

“‘Cause they’re suspicious?”

“Allow me to explain, Caspar. You may have been too young to remember it, but when I was a child, my father was not mayor. There was another, by the name of Hresvelg. There was a great storm one night, and lightning struck the house, setting it alight and burning the whole estate to the ground. Not one member of the family was spared. But there is another side to the tale, spread by gossips and housewives. It is said by some that one daughter survived, carried from the house by her vassal.”

Caspar scratches his head. “So what’s that got to do with this flame crest?”

“The girl was wearing only her nightclothes, so her vassal wrapped her in a blanket bearing the Crest of Flames. That is the last anyone saw of them, or so the tales say. There is an irony to fate, is it not? She bears the sign of the fire that took the rest of her family from her.”

“Oh.” Despite his efforts, Caspar still doesn’t look like he understands it. “Right. I guess we’re looking for this lost girl, then?”

“She’d be a woman, now.” Ferdinand raises his lantern, watching as the two sets of hoofprints split apart, one to the left, one to the right. He nods to Caspar, stood by his left hand, bouncing with nervous energy. “You take that set. We meet back at the saloon when the church bells ring seven.”

“Sure. You need me to hit something, just holler.”

“I can think of no man more suited for the task.”

He parts ways with Caspar at the end of the road. Ferdinand follows the hoofprints for a little longer, through the side roads until he reaches the main street. There, tied up outside the sheriff’s house: a huge horse black as death, feathered at hoof and hock. 

“Good evening!” Ferdinand calls into the evening, waiting for an answering call. A shadow sneaks around from the back, little more than a flicker of motion. The stranger is dressed head to toe in black, impossible to tell where the darkness ends and he begins. 

There’s no answering call, and Ferdinand steps forward again, raising the lamp to head height to try and get a better look at the man. The evening yields nothing so he keeps going, walking the few yards across the street with one hand raised, the other clutching the reins of his horse. He feels awfully exposed like this. With both his hands full, if the stranger tried anything he would have no way of defending himself until it was too late. 

But the stranger doesn’t pull out a weapon. In fact, he barely even moves as Ferdinand closes the distance between them and ties his mare next up next to the dark horse. He keeps hugged into the silhouette of the buildings behind, difficult to pick out until Ferdinand rests the lamp down on the porch, flooding the alcove with light.

The stranger is taller than Ferdinand. Not by much, no, but enough. A rifle is slung across the man’s back, a belt of gleaming blades around his waist. His face is hidden by the wide brim of his hat, which he dutifully removes when Ferdinand approaches. He pulls down the scarf around his mouth, too, exposing a glint of skin pale in the dying sunlight.

“You the sheriff ‘round these parts?” he asks, wary.

“An interim,” Ferdinand explains, just as cautious. His right hand hovers at his hip again. “I am expecting to be made lawman by the end of the year, but if the town votes differently then I shall go back to my father’s business. Regardless, I can put you in touch with the sheriff if you require.”

A flick of the wrist cuts him off. “That won’t be necessary, thank you.”

Something about the stranger makes Ferdinand uncomfortable, the way he’d felt the day he’d ridden through a village that had fallen to plague. Empty houses with doors left ajar, utter stillness save for the vultures and coyotes picking through the corpses.

The man picks a cigarette from his pocket, trying to put Ferdinand at ease. Perhaps it’s the whiskey, but Ferdinand does the same despite the man’s eerie presence. He’s still sure he can smell death on the man’s clothes, the putrid stench of blood and decay.

It’s hard to pick out his features because he keeps himself tucked in the shadows: ghastly pallid skin like he rarely sees the sun, pale eyes narrowed in permanent suspicion. His face is hollow, sunken in like his body had died many years ago and his mind had never got the memo. 

_Like death made flesh,_ Ferdinand thinks. 

As undignified as it is, he finds himself staring. He tells himself it’s morbid fascination, but really it’s the deep unease that winds through him at the sight of the black-clad stranger outside the sheriff’s office.

The man strikes a match, the end flaring into life before dying down just as quickly. He lights his cigarette in silence. His hands cup the match as he does the same for Ferdinand, close enough that Ferdinand can smell the faint stench of horses and sweat on the man’s gloves, see the light patches where the leather has worn away.

He nods in thanks, but doesn’t say anything else. 

The orange embers at the end of the cigarette help to soften the stranger’s face, but not by much.

“Where have you come from?” Ferdinand asks, hoping for answers, no matter how futile that fight may be.

“We wander. No one place can contain us for more than a week or so.”

“I take it you will not be in town long?” 

A shake of the head. “Just long enough to conduct our business, and then we will be gone as quietly as we came. You needn’t concern yourself with us.”

Ferdinand thinks back to Caspar’s words. “You and your wife?” he asks tentatively, and the man lets out a chuckle, dark and low.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Who is she, then? The woman you travel with.” Ferdinand gestures to -- well, to _all of_ the man, the knives and rifle and stench of poison on his breath. “Is she as excessively armed as yourself?”

He chuckles again, and Ferdinand finds himself ever-more uncomfortable in the man's presence. 

“What is your business in San Adrestia?” he asks, hand firmly on his six-shooter. “Answer me honest, and I will be on my way.”

“I didn’t catch your name,” the man says quietly, changing the subject. He looks Ferdinand up and down, assessing him like a rancher at a cattle fair. “You wouldn’t happen to be Aegir’s boy, would you?”

Ferdinand stands a little taller in the man’s presence, defiant. “Von Aegir, yes. That is correct. But you failed to answer my question. What is your business in San Adrestia--”

“A pity,” the man says. “I really didn’t want to kill you too.”

He doesn’t say anything else.

Ferdinand struggles to keep the impetuous note from his voice, but even impoliteness is better than the fear that grips him inside. The dull steel of his gun against his fingertips offers little in the way of comfort. “What does that mean?” he demands. “You know my father?”

“Unfortunately.” The man’s tone is dull, cold. “A shame, really. At least you don’t share his poor choice of allies. And you seem to have some sort of moral compass, which is more than I can say for your old man.” He exhales, blowing smoke into the night. “Ah, but I’m sure that will change, given enough time and money. The sins of the father are the sins of the son, after all.”

“‘Parents are not to be put to death for their children’,” Ferdinand quotes, “‘nor children put to death for their parents. Each will die for their own sin’. That is what the good book says.”

The stranger nods. “Deuteronomy, 24:16. One wonders why you memorised that passage, out of all the Bible has to say on sin.”

Ferdinand falls silent again. He has no answer for that. Instead he tries another attempt at civility, offering his hand for a handshake.

“I am Ferdinand von Aegir,” he starts again. “But your name eludes me still.”

“Good,” the man says, finishing his cigarette and dropping the butt into the dust. He leaves Ferdinand hanging there, his friendship snubbed. “Do not make the same mistakes as your father.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

But the man is already hauling himself up into the saddle of that great black horse, fixing his hat back on his head and taking the reins. “Goodbye, Ferdinand von Aegir. I do hope that our paths never cross again.”

He kicks his horse into life. The mare screams, kicking up dust as it goes. 

Determined not to lose his quarry, Ferdinand extinguishes his cigarette, clambers up into his own saddle and slides his revolver from its holster. He presses his boots into the horse’s flanks, spurring it forward. The beast sets off at a trot and he kicks it up to a gallop, slowly closing the distance between them--

A scream cuts the night, high and shrill.

Another.

And then the shout of a boy who has barely turned a man, a cry of rage and pain and fear.

_Caspar._

Ferdinand halts his horse, watching for a moment as the man slips from his grasp. But a moment is all he can afford: he yanks the reins around, forcing his horse back into town, back towards the source of the cries. 

“Ferdinand!” comes the scream again. He grips the saddle until his thighs burn, digging his heels into the horse’s side until it whinnies in dissent. But for once, he hardly cares, spurring her faster, faster, _faster--_

And there it is, a white horse tied up outside the pastor’s house. Now he sees it he’s certain, and the fire in his chest flares again. It’s not a grey horse, but a white horse, truly white, taken from the Hresvelg stables on that fateful night.

There’s only one person it can be, all logic is showing him that. But the whole family was gone, the house razed to the ground with no survivors. That’s what his father had said for years, every time they rode past the burnt-out shell of the manor house a mile or so out of town.

Edelgard Hresvelg is dead.

Isn’t she?

The scream rings out again. The door to the pastor’s house has been hacked open with a hatchet, the lock mangled, the wood splintered. Ferdinand dismounts, staring into the abyss. It’s like the plague village all over again: the wind whistles through the open door, the black, empty void stretching before him, completely unknown.

Except this time there are grunts and shouts from the upstairs room, the sound of raised voices and shattered glass and the _crack_ as a gunshot echoes through the night. 

Ferdinand readies the gun in his hand, cocks the weapon with a _click,_ and steps forward into the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

He races up the stairs two at a time.

Another shot echoes off the walls, the _click-click crack_ of Caspar’s shotgun going off. The sounds of the fight rattles the walls, then another scream, then a _thud._

And then silence.

Ferdinand’s heart skips a beat. He can only hope he’s not too late.

Revolver out, he kicks the bedroom door in. A woman stands at the foot of the pastor’s bed, bloodied tomahawk in hand. Steely eyes fix him with a glare that could strip flesh from bone. Caspar was right: she’s short, five foot two at a push, white-blonde hair left loose. Like the man outside the sheriff’s office, her nose and mouth are covered, hiding her face from the world.

But Ferdinand doesn’t need to see her face to know exactly who the woman is.

Caspar isn’t moving. He’s sat on the floor, slumped against the wall. One side of his face is bloodied from a deep wound in his hairline, the shoulder of his jacket torn open. His shotgun lies discarded at his side. Blood trickles from his nose, broken in the fight.

Still his chest rises and falls, perhaps a little shallower than usual, but sure enough.

Edelgard seems no worse for wear despite their scuffle. There are a few bloody patches across the serape she wears, but Ferdinand doubts any of it is her own. Slowly, she pulls down the scarf around her mouth, showing her face for the first time.

She twirls the axe in her hand, but Ferdinand raises his six-shooter a little higher. “Do not try anything,” he warns. “I will not hesitate.”

“I won’t be hurting your friend any further,” she replies. She nods her head towards Caspar’s unconscious form, her tone cold and sterile. “I have achieved what I set outta do. Stand aside and let me pass, now. I don’t want to fight you too.”

Her words go completely over Ferdinand’s head.

“Edelgard Hresvelg,” he says quietly. “You survived.”

She nods her head, lips pressed together. “Indeed I did.”

He dares to glance to the bed where the town’s pastor used to sleep. The sheets are a bloodied, tangled mess, the wall spattered with birdshot holes. Ferdinand pushes down the sick feeling that rises in his stomach. “And you killed him.”

“I did what I had to.” There’s no remorse in her voice. The last of the sunlight is disappearing so he can’t see much of her face, but there’s a sadness etched into her expression, buried deep and slowly making its way to the surface. She’s not like her companion: she doesn’t enjoy killing, no. It’s a means to an end for her.

“Why?” he asks, gun still out. He sidesteps over to Caspar, never letting Edelgard leave his sight. Two of Ferdinand’s fingers slide under Caspar’s chin, finding a healthy pulse beneath. He’ll be alright, though not for Edelgard’s lack of trying. “Answer me,” he commands, more forceful this time.

Edelgard shakes her head. She seems unafraid, but lowers the axe in her hand. She doesn’t reaffix it to her belt, though, her body still alert and ready to take off at a moment’s notice. “Your pastor was using the people’s money for his own gain,” she explains. “Claimed himself a man of God while stripping money from the honest, decent folk of the town. And he was one of the men that -- well, I don’t reckon it matters much anymore. It won’t bring my family back.”

“Your family--” Ferdinand starts, trying to assemble the puzzle in his mind. “You are saying the fire was intentional. That someone planned to have your father killed. And the pastor -- somehow this man helped to make it so?”

He gets a nod in reply, but she doesn’t give anything else away. Her brows pinch into a frown. 

“But why kill him?” Ferdinand asks, the anger starting to boil inside him. His shooter starts to tremble in his hand, and he jams the safety back on before returning it to its holster. Edelgard isn’t going to try anything, of that he is sure. “Why not take him to stand trial?” 

She laughs. “Under the eye of the judge he bribed? You try that, see how it works out for you.”

“So this is about revenge?”

“If only it were that simple.” She shakes her head, dismissive. But her words and her actions show two different things, and Ferdinand is far from convinced.

His hand starts to creep back towards his hip. Edelgard’s eyes follow him all the way.

“Don’t do that,” she warns. "You don't want to fight me."

But his faith is shaken. “You killed him,” he says again. “You murdered a man in cold blood.”

“He was corrupt.”

“He was an old man _lying in his bed!_ ”

“You cannot understand,” she tries to explain, raising that tomahawk again. Blood runs from the blade, down the handle, over her fingers. “It is my duty--”

Ferdinand reaches for the handcuffs at his belt. “Miss Hresvelg, as interim sheriff I am arresting you for the murder of--”

She lunges. Ferdinand grabs his gun and pulls the trigger, but the shot goes wide. He fumbles as he goes to reload, and Edelgard hurls her tomahawk towards him. He drops to the floor, the axe embedding itself into the wall where his chest was a second ago.

“Hresvelg!” he calls, but he’s too late. 

He gets to his feet just in time to see her disappear from the window, taking a second to look back before dropping onto the porch below. Ferdinand scrambles over to the shutters, firing off one, two, three--

But Edelgard is already up on her horse, riding away with the crest of flames fluttering out behind her. Ferdinand goes to follow, turning to run down the stairs in pursuit. But there’s a body in his way, slumped unconscious against the wall.

Caspar groans. He stirs, eyes still mostly closed. The left side of his head is plastered in blood: Ferdinand knows that head wounds bleed a lot, but the sheer volume of it is starting to concern him. 

His heart is torn between chasing down the two outlaws and aiding his friend. Duty dictates he should get out there, saddle up and ride after Edelgard until he catches the duo or they shoot him down first. But Caspar needs him now. 

Better safe than sorry, after all.

He crouches down to the boy’s level, looking him over.

“Caspar?” Ferdinand asks, and at the sound of his name, Caspar looks up in confusion. 

His eyes are bleary, unfocussed. “Sir?” he slurs, half-conscious. “Did you get her?”

“I am afraid not,” he replies. “Are you hurt?”

The reply comes quickly, accompanied by a pained shake of the head. “I'm alright. Don’t you worry ‘bout me. Go get her--”

“No,” Ferdinand decides, talking to himself. “You are in no state to be left alone. I shall get you to Linhardt immediately. He will know what to do with you.”

He grabs Caspar by the arm, hoisting him to his feet. Caspar had never been tall, but he’d grown a lot in the last year or so, and he’s surprisingly heavy for his size. Ferdinand staggers under the extra weight: down the stairs, out into the street, down the main road. The body leaning against his shoulder is limp, unwieldy, and absolutely refusing to behave. 

He almost drops Caspar into the dusty ground several times, tough leather boots scuffing against the dirt. Every step is a struggle, and not for the first time, Ferdinand curses his noble heart.

Eventually they stumble up the path towards the Hevring house. As apprentice, Linhardt had been filling in while the town doctor was away. He was doing an admirable job for the most part -- when he wasn’t idling the days away with a book or napping in the shade of the porch, away from the sun and his responsibility.

Ferdinand sets Caspar down in the chair outside the door, and goes to knock. But a weak sound makes his hand hover an inch or two above the wood, stopping him before he can summon Linhardt to the door.

“No blood.”

Caspar’s voice is hoarse, scratched with dust and pain. He shifts, restless even in his addled state. “No blood,” he murmurs, and Ferdinand crouches down to meet him again.

“There is rather a lot of blood, I am afraid--”

“Linhardt-- he hates blood. Can’t stand the damned stuff. You gotta-- you gotta get it off, sir, or he’ll throw up at the sight a’ it.”

Ferdinand frowns. He stands, reaching to the canteen on his belt. It’s only half-full, but there’s enough water to get the job done. He tries to pull Caspar’s jacket off, but the boy was useless at the best of times, and even more so when nursing a head injury. After a minute of struggling, Ferdinand finally gives up and empties the canteen over Caspar’s head.

Blue eyes widen, suddenly alert. Caspar coughs, then uses the arm of his jacket to smear away the worst of the blood. His movements are still clumsy and uncoordinated, and Ferdinand has to catch him as he leans precariously forward in the chair. 

“That is quite enough, do you not think?”

Caspar nods, still out of it. “Just-- just you go get Lin, yessir?”

With a sigh, Ferdinand knocks on the door with the back of his hand, praying that Linhardt is still awake. It wasn’t uncommon that the young scholar would burn the midnight oil, studying late into the night until he fell asleep into his books. If there was any time for him to be awake, it was now.

Sure enough, after a few seconds there’s the sound of footsteps shuffling down the stairs. Patches of light and shadow flicker beneath the door.

The chain is pulled back, bolt slid open. He’s met with tired eyes and a disapproving expression, long hair pulled back and tied with a bright green ribbon. He holds a book in his right hand and a lamp in his left, burning low.

Linhardt squints at him, reading glasses perched on his nose. “Ferdinand. I would say it’s a pleasure, but you always seem to bring me bad news. What can I do for you at this ungodly hour?”

By way of explanation, Ferdinand steps to the side, revealing the semi-conscious boy slouched across Linhardt’s porch.

“Howdy," Caspar croaks, face plastered with a guilty grin. He raises his hand in greeting, then winces in pain and drops it again sharpish.

“Not this again,” Linhardt says, then motions with his head. “In the kitchen, please. And do try not to bleed all over my house. I’m still cleaning up the stains from last time.”

He turns on his heel and disappears back inside, leaving Ferdinand to drag Caspar’s slack form into the house. They assemble in the kitchen a minute or so later, Linhardt setting his bag down and setting up the stove to boil his bandages. Caspar sits half-conscious on the table, swinging his feet back and forth like a bored child. Ferdinand stands in front of him, ready to catch him should his balance fail again and he ends up on the cold stone floor below. He explains everything as they work, but Linhardt looks like he’s about to fall asleep at any moment, so Ferdinand keeps it succinct. 

“Will he be alright?” Ferdinand asks eventually, but he’s silenced with a _tsk_ from Linhardt as he pulls Caspar’s bloodstained outer layers off. Each item is roughly folded and dropped onto the chair beside him. A huge patch of blue-black bruising spreads over where his shoulder meets his neck -- that thick sheepskin jacket had taken the worst of the impact, and the actual axe-blow had barely broken the skin. But it had obviously been a strike with serious force behind it: the bruising spreads from the top of his pectoral to his jaw, and his collarbone caves inward, now in three distinct pieces. For all her placating words, Edelgard had gone for the kill.

Detached, Linhardt observes the damage, front and back. Deft hands part Caspar’s hair until he uncovers the head wound, still bleeding sluggishly. Red-black blood is quickly clotting in ridges around the wound, spiking Caspar’s hair up into sticky, matted clumps. Linhardt goes pale at the sight, taking a step back and leaning on the table for support.

“What day is it?” he asks Caspar, who shakes his head in disbelief. “And what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Wednesday,” he replies. “An’ I must’ve gotten whacked in the head for it to hurt this bad. Some white-haired broad with a mean streak. See, Lin, I’m fine. You ain’t got nothing to worry ‘bout.”

“It’s Saturday,” Linhardt counters, unimpressed. He turns his attention to Ferdinand instead. “I am concerned about the prospect of internal bleeding,” he says matter-of-factly. “How long ago did Caspar sustain this injury?”

Ferdinand casts his mind back. “Twenty minutes since, or thereabouts.”

“Hm,” Linhardt replies, stifling a yawn. “Come to me faster, next time.”

The rest of his assessment passes in hushed silence.

“So what’s the damage, doc?” Caspar rasps, and Linhardt stands back, hands on hips. 

“Concussion,” he starts, “and I don’t need to be a doctor to see that. The head wound is deeper than I’d hoped, and you’ll need stitches. Your clavicle is broken and will need to be reset. And thankfully, you’ve managed not to rupture anything too important internally, or else my job would be an awful lot more difficult.”

“Oh,” Caspar says, dulled mind slowly processing the information. “If all the bleeding is on the inside, how’d you know I ain’t busted nothing?”

“Because you woulda bled to death by now.”

“Oh,” he says again, then falls quiet.

Linhardt reaches for his bag, pulling out a reel of thread thick as horsehair and a sharp, curved needle. “You can leave now, Ferdinand.”

“You do not need me here?”

“I’m sure I’ll manage.” He sets his equipment down on the table next to Caspar, then begins to roll up his sleeves. Despite the certainty with which he rinses his hands, he’s even paler than usual, staring down at the sink. “Besides,” he adds, “you’ll only get in my way.”

Ferdinand picks his hat up from the table. “If you are sure.”

“Completely.”

He knows when he’s beaten. “Then please keep me updated,” he says. “If there is anything I can do--”

“Thank you,” Linhardt replies. “Goodnight.”

It’s the closest thing he’ll get to a heartfelt goodbye, and Ferdinand nods in reply, bidding him goodnight and replacing his hat back onto his head. He shuts the door behind him as he leaves, then pulls a cigarette from its case in his pocket. He doesn’t light it, instead chewing on the end while he processes the night’s events. The savoury taste of tobacco doesn’t do much to focus his errant thoughts, but it does help calm him a little.

He considers what he knows. 

Edelgard Hresvelg -- and her manservant, he presumes -- are alive and well. If she is to be trusted, then it was no freak storm that destroyed her family home and everyone in it. A group of men, two of which are now dead, orchestrated the deaths of her entire bloodline. And now it seems the two of them are back from hiding, and on a brutal mission of revenge and death.

Ferdinand can’t help but wonder how far the conspiracy goes. How much blood will be spilt, how many men will die by their hands. How many wives will become widows, how many children will have to grow up with a father.

Conspiracy or not, he will not stand for it. 

He starts to formulate a plan. He’ll send the sheriff’s men out to search the town, and the barrens beyond if need be. They can spread the world of the Hresvelg girl, track her down and bring her to justice. And he’ll go to Bernadetta first thing tomorrow morning and ask her to make a portrait of the outlaws. That way everyone can help in his search. The quicker they can get Edelgard’s to work _with_ the law, not outside of it, the better--

The black-clad man’s words echo in Ferdinand’s mind all of a sudden. 

_“You wouldn’t happen to be Aegir’s boy, would you?"_

And then: _“I really didn’t want to kill you, too.”_

A sinking feeling starts to fester in Ferdinand’s gut. His feet are running before he can think about where they’re leading him, his hands grabbing his horse by the reins and heaving himself into the saddle. He rides back as fast as the old mare can take him, past the edge of town to his father’s estate. Dust flies out in his wake, kicking up grit and gravel behind him. His legs burn from the exertion. He squints to see anything in the last of the sunset: the pinpricks of light on the horizon get bigger as he approaches, but it’s still too slowly for his liking. 

He rides through von Aegir lands, past the cattle pens, then the stables, up the gravel-lined approach to the house--

His gaze settles on the two figures outside the house. The sinking feeling turns to dread, and then to despair. Two horses tied outside his house. One black, one white. And as he watches, Edelgard dismounts from her horse, taking her manservant’s hand to steady herself. Neither of them are armed, as far as he can tell, but all that is about to change. 

His horse covers the last few yards in a flurry of hoofbeats and stirred-up dust, and he slows the beast to a trot as he approaches. He pulls the gun from its holster, training it on Edelgard. The lamps affixed to the outside of the house provide just enough to see by. Come morning, he’ll never be more glad to see the sunrise. 

If he sees the sunrise at all.

It's a big _if._

“Edelgard Hresvelg!” he calls. She turns to face him, flinching a little as the six-shooter is thrust at her face.

As if in affirmation, her manservant cocks his rifle. It’s a threat clear as day.

“Is it your intention to kill me?” Ferdinand calls, wary. He brings his horse to a stop, still staring down the barrel of another man’s gun.

The man in black shakes his head. That dark laugh fills the night again. “Not you, no. But if you get in our way, we will do what we must.”

Ferdinand’s thoughts race through his mind, finally coming to the inevitable conclusion. “My father, then. That is who you are here for.”

He gets a nod from Edelgard, solemn and impassive. But her manservant’s smile returns like he takes some sort of twisted pleasure from it all.

“Not him, I beg of you.” Ferdinand hopes he doesn’t let the despair into his voice. He’s not convinced. “Is there not any other way? Can we not resolve this peacefully?”

Iron in Edelgard’s words. “Your father has been greasing pockets, fixing the elections. How’d you think he became mayor?”

“He is a good man!”

“He’s one link in a chain of corruption that spreads halfway across the state,” she adds matter-of-factly. “You truly got no idea, do you?”

Ferdinand flails for an explanation. “As mayor, of course my father will have enemies, but I simply cannot believe--”

He stops dead in his tracks. Guilt builds inside him, the itching feeling that creeps into everything he knows, everything he’s worked towards, tainting every happy memory. His father’s business took lands from the empty estate now there was nobody to tend to them. With the Hresvelg family gone, the pastor could continue to embezzle church funds, his father’s position as mayor had gone unchallenged, and the tracks had been covered by ensuring that the ignorant son took up the mantle of sheriff, burying the conspiracy beneath him.

It was all built on a lie, right from the very start.

“The sheriff, too?”

The man in black’s voice is silky-smooth, but dull, flat, devoid of emotion. “A puppet, put in place by your father. Appointing him tied up all the loose ends, ensuring their crimes went unpunished. He will have succumbed to poison by morning. There is nothing you can do.”

“No!” Ferdinand shouts. At the sound, lights start to flicker in the windows behind him, and his horse shifts beneath him, startled. “I detest this mindless killing,” he spits. “It is abhorrent. You will come back with me and face justice.”

The man in black just laughs again. “Your outburst is ever-so endearing, Aegir, but your county judge takes bribes under the table. With a little persuasion, I am sure he will look kindly upon us.”

“That’s what I said, Hubert,” Edelgard replies. “There's no justice out here, just money and violence.”

“I disagree,” Ferdinand tries, but he pulls back the hammer of his gun regardless. The _click_ pierces the night louder than any gunshot. 

Edelgard’s eyes widen ever-so slightly. She may have given him the slip the last time they met, but now he has the upper hand. In his position on horseback, even _she_ doesn’t have the skill to best him.

“And yet you hold my lady at gunpoint like the savages you claim to be above,” says the man in black -- _Hubert,_ she had called him. His mouth twitches into a smile. “Ironic.”

“She is in your care,” Ferdinand counters. His eyes don’t leave the woman at the end of his six-shooter. “You have looked after her ever since you were a child. Spent all those years wandering together. I am sure you must have developed feelings for her. So you will come back to San Adrestia with me, or I will pull the trigger.”

The reply is dry, rehearsed. “It is my duty, nothing more. And you’d best remember that she isn’t the only one in the crosshairs.”

In Ferdinand’s peripheral, he can see Hubert raising his rifle a little, just to emphasise his point. He licks his lips in preparation. This close up his aim will not fail. 

Then again, neither will Ferdinand’s.

His words are crystal-clear in the dying light. “Your duty to protect her. My life for hers. Are you truly willing to take that risk, Hubert? I do not believe you are.”

At the sound, Hubert’s hands shift on his rifle, restless. His finger tightens on the trigger. But eventually he lowers the gun, back slowly pointing it to the ground.

“Hm,” Ferdinand acknowledges. His gaze shifts from Edelgard to Hubert and back again, still wary. His carefully-prepared plans vanish in a heartbeat, shifting into something new. “You are to leave these lands immediately. If either of you make an attempt on my father’s life tonight, I will shoot you on sight. Do I make myself clear?”

“Not tonight, perhaps,” Edelgard replies, “but you can’t protect him forever.”

“No. However, I can settle for this.”

He raises his free hand to his face, then pulls his glove off using his teeth, one finger at a time. Once his hand is free, he tosses the glove into the ground at Edelgard’s feet with a flourish.

It takes a moment for her to realise what he’s asking. “A duel?” she asks. “Isn’t that a little… archaic?”

“Perhaps. But it is the only way I can see us coming to resolution over this matter. You have proven yourself as a fighter, so I have no qualms in challenging you.”

“There are two of us,” Hubert chips in, “and unless that boy of yours makes a miraculous recovery, only one of you.”

“But it is you that is at the wrong end of a gun.”

His words echo off the walls, and then they're quickly swallowed up by the vast expanse of scrub and desert beyond. He can feel the flicker of uncertainty in the air. Every second drags out, every breath agonisingly long. The wind whispers in the desert, whipping their hair around their faces and bringing with it the dry, rattling rasp of death himself.

The silence is unbearable. 

He looks down at Edelgard, waiting for her answer.

“Very well,” she says. She bows her head in acceptance, and relief courses through him. “What are your terms?”

“You will harm nobody else tonight. Tomorrow, my father’s life for my own,” Ferdinand announces. The declaration rings out through the night, noble as ever. A figure shifts in the window above him.

“I got that,” Edelgard replies. “And if you were to win?”

“You and your companion are to leave San Adrestia and never return. No-one else in my town dies by your hand.”

She weighs the terms for a moment, but it’s clear to see her mind is made up. 

“Then I accept your challenge,” she affirms, quiet as a breath in the night. Her words are carried away by the wind.

“High noon tomorrow,” Ferdinand states, chin raised, six-shooter still outstretched. “Under the clock tower at Garreg Mach church. Ten paces apiece. Come alone.”

Hubert moves fast as a whip, stepping between her and Ferdinand’s gun. “I will fight in her place,” he swears, unwavering. 

“No!” Edelgard protests. “Absolutely not, Hubert. I won’t allow it.”

“I insist.”

“Do you think me incapable?” she asks, but he cuts her off with a shake of the head. 

“The mission comes first,” he says, raising a hand as if to reach out to her. But he realises his mistake and drops his arm again. His voice is a whisper. “I am expendable,” he explains, “but I cannot allow anything to happen to you. Edelgard -- _my lady_ \-- there are some battles I cannot allow you to fight.”

“Don’t--” Edelgard starts, but her protest falls away. She looks up at him, and suddenly she seems so very small, like the child carried from a burning house all those years ago. Her eyes are wide, pleading. There has to be love there, Ferdinand realises, no matter how much they deny it.

“You come in your father’s stead,” Hubert declares to him, “and I'll come in Lady Edelgard’s. I will see you tomorrow at five to noon.”

Ferdinand nods. Under the watchful single-eyed gaze of his gun, the two outlaws mount their horses, pulling masks over their faces and riding away into the night. Their bargain is set, the deal set in stone. There’s no backing out now.

His thoughts stray to tomorrow morning, to the burning heat of the sun above and the sandy ground in the shade of the church. To the coldness of metal in his hand, the ten paces taken in time to the toll of church bells. To a woman with all the beauty and grace of the heavens, singing in a dusty small-town saloon. He swears he can still hear her voice carried through the night air, but he puts it down to the nerves. There’s no way the sound would carry this far. And Dorothea wouldn’t be singing this late, certainly not for _him._

Besides, he can’t afford to get distracted.

That night, Ferdinand stands guard outside his father’s room, and he doesn’t sleep a wink.


	3. Chapter 3

There’s still a candle in the window of the church tower, burning low.

Ferdinand had left the house at first light that morning. He’d barely managed more than a catnap, snatching an hour and a half of sleep as the sun rose. In truth, he was far too nervous to rest: he’d jolted awake every few minutes until exhaustion had finally claimed him, and even then his body hadn’t let him sleep for long.

The Sunday church bells hadn’t rung out that morning.

Ferdinand had explained the night’s events to the people of San Adrestia, and placed a notice on the church door to inform any latecomers. He’d omitted the part about his duel. That was one thing he’d rather the townsfolk didn’t know about.

A small figure had watched him all the while from a lofty room up in the rafters of the church tower. Bernadetta had disappeared from view every time he’d looked up, but he’d caught glimpses of her as he’d addressed the town, and talking to her was on his list of morning chores. Duel or not, he still has a job to do.

First, though, there's another strange face in town. Petra waves to him from the marketplace, but she hangs back. She tended to keep to herself, for the most part. The people of San Adrestia weren’t exactly _hostile_ to the natives, but they were hardly on speaking terms. The colonisers and the people of Brigid had reached an uneasy truce a few years ago -- Caspar's father had orchestrated that, if he recalled correctly. Since then, Ferdinand had tried his best to respect the natives, but after the truce they had stayed away, only sending Petra into town on the rare occasions they needed something. 

_‘Petrahontas’,_ the Adrestians called her behind her back. It was no way to treat a princess, and it made his blood boil every time he heard it. 

Ferdinand waves back, and she spurs her horse over towards him. She greets him with a wide smile, eyes alight. A brace of wild turkeys hangs from her panniers on one side, a pronghorn carried on the back of her saddle. Her morning hunt had obviously been productive.

“Ferdinand!” she exclaims with a grin. Despite all the hardship she'd endured, she remains enthusiastic, kind-hearted to all. “It is good to be seeing you. It has been too long since we have last been talking, and I have been missing you all.”

It's hard not to be taken by her enthusiasm, and Ferdinand smiles in reply. “You too, princess. What brings you to San Adrestia?”

She frowns. “I am needing ammunition for a rifle. But there is nobody willing to be trading with me. Am I doing something wrong? Is this food not enough?”

“It is Sunday,” he replies. “The day of The Lord. We do not do business today.”

“Is a day for your god?”

He nods, and Petra’s face falls.

“I am seeing. Sunday is a special day. May I return tomorrow to be trading?”

“Of course. I may not be around, but I am sure the good folk of the town will see to whatever it is you need.” 

She bows her head. "Thank you. I shall be returning soon."

They fall into silence, a little awkward. Ferdinand glances at the clock in the church tower, Petra stares to the horizon, and neither of them say anything.

“Are you well?” he asks eventually, and Petra nods, somewhat hesitant.

“I am well, but I am fearing for my family,” she replies quietly. “The land is changing. The rivers are not running as strong. The soils are dry. And I have not seen buffalo since before I lost my father. Now everything is being… different. But I am holding onto hope that the water and the buffalo will soon be returning. I must.”

Ferdinand looks out to the lands beyond. He doesn’t want to say that the dam fifty miles upriver helps to keep the population of San Adrestia watered, nor that he’d helped to run the bison off his father’s land. It _was_ for the best, after all. 

“I must be going,” Petra adds, looking up at the sky. “My mother is sick, and she is needing my care. I do not wish to be keeping her.”

“Then I shall bid you good day,” he says. “Until we next meet.”

Petra clicks her tongue and her horse sets off at a canter. He watches her until she's out of his sight, before pushing open the heavy iron doors to the Garreg Mach church. It’s oddly quiet for a Sunday morning, and the emptiness makes him nervous. It doesn’t sit right with him, not at all.

Ferdinand tries not to look at the empty pews as he passes. The Bible sits open on the altar, ready for the morning sermon, and he trails his fingers over the words as he reads.

Jeremiah, 17:7.

_"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord."_

It sure hadn't worked out that way for the pastor.

He takes the steps up the church tower, running on a blend of expensive spiced tea and exhaustion. He really didn’t have the stomach for breakfast, but he’d forced himself to eat regardless. He wasn’t about to fight on an empty stomach. 

The door to Bernadetta’s room is firmly shut. His knuckles knock _tap-tap-tap_ on the wood, the sound muted by his gloves.

“No thank you!” comes the voice, high and afraid. “Not today!”

“Very well,” he replies. He’s come prepared for this: there’s a letter in the pocket of his waistcoat, which he slides under the door at the sound of Bernadetta’s voice. “This is important business, but I shall not press. Please get in touch when you are feeling more--”

“Ferdinand, wait!”

The sound of bare feet shuffles over the wooden floor. The door opens just a crack, enough for a single grey eye to peek out at him. The chain is still pulled across.

“I-- I’m sorry,” Bernadetta says, voice quiet as a mouse. “I th-- thought you were some-- someone else.”

He frowns. “Who else did you think I might be?”

“It-- well, it don’t matter. I don’t wanna-- no, I’m not talking about it. But I can talk. I mean, about other things-- only if you want, I don’t wanna-- you don’t have to--”

“Bernadetta,” he whispers, voice full of affection. “I told you I was here on business. And that is true, in part. But I would never pass up the opportunity to speak with you. I do enjoy your company so.”

“Oh.”

Her refusal dies before she can voice it. She pulls the chain back and opens the door a little further, but still she stands behind it. Her face is in view, now, but most of her body is still hidden. Ferdinand’s heart warms with pride at the sight: a year ago she’d barely even talk to visitors, let alone show her face. 

“Good morning,” he says with a smile. Those soft grey eyes widen like those of a deer caught in a hunter’s sights, but she doesn’t bolt. Instead she tries a small, nervous smile in reply.

“Did-- did you want something from me?” she asks, and Ferdinand nods his head. 

“I must say, this is not a social call--”

“Oh no,” she says quietly, and suddenly all his hard work is undone. “I’m in trouble, ain’t I? Big trouble, I knew it, but I-- I never meant to hurt anyone, Ferdinand, sir, you gotta-- oh, stupid Bernie, they’ll never believe you! They’re gonna lock you up, Bernie, lock you up and throw away the key and leave you to rot in a jail cell where even the vultures won’t find you--”

“Have you done something wrong?” Ferdinand asks, and Bernadetta squeals at the question.

“I haven’t-- I mean, I don’t think so, I didn’t--”

He crouches down onto one knee, so she can look down upon him. He places his hat down onto the dusty floor, then unbuckles his gun belt and drops that beside him. “There,” he says quietly. “I will not lay a hand on you. Now you _must_ believe me.”

“Ferdinand--”

“I came seeking your drawing skills. There are outlaws in town, and I need your help in making a likeness of them. That is all, Bernadetta. Besides, you have proven yourself more than a match for me in unarmed combat.”

“Oh!” she replies. “You mean when I broke your wrist? Because that was an accident, I swear--”

“I blame no-one but myself,” he says, slowly getting to his feet. “But I digress. I would very much like to make use of your talent as an artist, if you would be so kind.”

“You’re serious?” she asks, edging back behind the door. Her doe-eyes are full of uncertainty, her voice high and strained. She fidgets with her dress, picking at the hem of her sleeves. 

“I am.”

“No,” she decides suddenly. “No, this is-- this is a trick, you just want to make fun of my art, you-- you’re gonna mock me, I know it!”

Ferdinand pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. Bernadetta could be trying at times, that much was true, but he keeps his patience. He waits for her to calm down before speaking again. He tries to keep his explanation as simple as possible.

“Were there a better artist in San Adrestia, I would have gone to them first. But if you truly do not wish to speak with me, then I can go elsewhere. I do not wish to alarm you, Bernadetta, only to request your skill. You may refuse me at any time, and I will leave.”

“Oh,” she says again, slowly inching out from behind the door. “I’m-- I’m flattered, Ferdinand, truly I am. But not today. Today isn’t an outside day.”

He frowns, but nods. “I understand. Could we do this in your room instead? Of course, if you want me gone, then all you need to do is say the words and I shall return another time.”

“No!” Bernadetta replies, a little shakily. “No, Ferdinand, that ain’t what I meant. You can come in, if you like, just-- just let me tidy up a moment.”

Dutifully, Ferdinand waits outside while Bernadetta scurries around her room, trying to make the place look presentable. A warm breeze picks up as she cracks the window open, making dust motes and sunbeams light up the tiny room. As he waits, Ferdinand straps his gun belt back around his hips, running his hand over the six-shooter in its holster. He’d taken the weapon apart and polished it until it shone, oiled it in all the right places and loaded it with the finest rounds money could buy.

But the gun lies dormant, for now.

A small voice interrupts him from his thoughts. 

“You can come in, now.”

Bernadetta stands in the doorway. Her arms are crossed over her chest, nervous, her dress crumpled and speckled with tiny flecks of soil. The garment is a little too small for her, as if she hadn't found a replacement yet. One of her sleeves is frayed at the end where she’d picked at it.

Ferdinand nods in thanks, and steps inside. 

Her room is small but tidy, free from clutter. Plants of all shapes and sizes line the shelves and windowsill -- some of them scrubby native succulents and cacti, some of them exotic-looking flowers, and some of them like strange flora from another world. Wherever there aren’t plants there are art supplies: sketchbooks and half-finished embroidery hoops, an easel with a brightly-coloured painting in one corner. She’d thrown a sheet over the canvas to hide it.

Dust dances around him as he walks in, and Bernadetta yelps at the _clink_ of spurs and the _clack_ of hob-nailed soles against the wooden floor.

“Dirty shoes off!” she says, and he complies in silence, leaving his boots at the door. She’s sat on her bed, pad of thick sketching paper in one hand, pencil in the other. She points to a chair piled high with cushions and blankets, and he sinks gratefully into it. Like this he can see half of San Adrestia through the church window. He watches, for a moment, catching snapshots of lives not his own: the children playing in the streets, the ostler feeding the horses at the inn, the ranchers wrangling a herd of cattle in the lands beyond. People he knows by name, too: Linhardt, napping in the shade; Petra, still trying to barter with the shopkeeper; Caspar, his arm in a sling and a wobble in his step.

And Dorothea stood on her balcony, her skin unmarked porcelain, her dress sheer in the morning sunlight. 

From up here it seems so far away, and he understands why Bernadetta likes it so much. But he can see almost all of the three hundred and forty-five souls in his care, and sooner or later he knows he must descend the stairs and attend to his duty on the parched earth below.

Ferdinand turns his attention back to Bernadetta. “I am afraid I do not have a photograph,” he explains, “but I trust your sketch to capture their likeness from a description. I know it is a challenge, but do you think you can do that?”

"I'll try my best, sir." She raises pencil to paper. Ferdinand holds the image of the two outlaws in his mind, but he doesn’t start to describe them. Not yet. 

“What do you know of the Hresvelg family?” he asks, and Bernadetta screws her face up in concentration as she tries to recall.

“Not much,” she admits. “I know they built their home on the edge of Brigid lands, but it’s all burnt down now. They all died in the fire, a long time ago. We woulda been children back then.”

He nods. “We were.”

“Why do you ask-- does this mean the rumours are true?”

Another nod. “Edelgard is alive, that much is correct. But there is still much I do not know. That is why I need your help, Bernadetta.”

She presses her lips together in concern. “Like I said. I’ll try my best.”

They talk for a little longer before she gets to work. Edelgard, first, then Hubert. The portraits aren’t perfect likenesses, but Bernadetta has an extraordinary talent to draw from his words alone, and after nearly two hours of meticulous work, Ferdinand holds the two sketches at arm’s length and admires her skill.

“They are remarkable,” he says quietly. “I shall see that the sheriff’s office compensates you handsomely for your efforts.”

She goes pink at his words, hugging her sketchbook to her chest and staring at the floor. “It was nothing, really, you don’t have to--”

“No, I insist. This is excellent work, Bernadetta. I am truly impressed.”

“Th-- thank you!” she stutters. Her face is flushed red, now, trying to stifle the involuntary smile. “They’re alright, I guess, but-- But you really don’t-- I mean, you don’t gotta--”

“Nonsense,” he replies. “Any man would expect to be paid for two hours’ work, and so should you. Besides, I cannot imagine your father provides much for you, and you are as yet unmarried, so--”

“Time to go!” Bernadetta snaps, her smile evaporating. “I don’t want to talk anymore. Please leave me, Ferdinand. Please--”

He nods, rising out of the seat and cursing his choice of words. “Of course. You have my apologies.”

Ferdinand picks his hat and boots from the door. He apologises again, wishes her good day, and leaves without another word.

He stands outside the church, chewing on an expensive cigar. It may be his final day on earth, so he’ll allow himself the indulgence. He strikes a match, lighting up the cigar and slowly working at it. His restless thoughts drift from one thing to another. He can't focus, not like this.

His horse stamps in the dust, huffing impatiently and flicking her tail to scare off the flies. He strokes the mare’s nose to calm her down and ease his troubled mind. The tobacco helps, as does the faithful, steady old beast tied up in front of him. She noses at the six-pointed star pinned to his waistcoat as if enquiring about the new addition.

Sheriff von Aegir, if only for a day.

The sun is beating high and hot, and he squints up at the sky overhead. A single toll of the church bell tells him it’s eleven-thirty, and nervousness starts to build in his gut. Vultures and crows wheel high in the sky. It’s like they already know, and are simply biding time until they can pick the carrion from the corpse his duel will leave behind.

He tries to shake the feeling of dread from his mind, but it simply refuses to leave. Instead, Ferdinand sits down on the church steps and waits. He counts the six rounds in his gun, sliding them out of the chamber, then back in again. He dusts down his dirty riding chaps, fixes his collar, pulls his hat down low. One of the children playing in the streets gets a dollar to deliver the portraits and a letter to the sheriff’s office should Ferdinand not return. His canteen is quickly drained of water, the cigar burned through.

It’s easy to keep his hands occupied. His mind, far less so.

“Ferdinand!” comes a voice, and he looks up to the source. A flurry of white silks and flowing skirts, brown hair flying behind her in the wind.

“Dorothea.” 

He greets her with a smile and a lump in his throat. She’s radiant as ever, a polished jewel in a rugged world of dirt and rust. But there’s a seriousness in her expression that doesn’t suit her, a fear in her eyes he’s rarely seen before.

“I heard,” she says quietly. “One of your family’s maids told me. I had to come, Ferdie. I couldn’t let you do this alone.”

He nods in thanks, but his throat freezes up and his mind is blank. All he wants to do is look at her. This may be the last time they speak, and he can’t think of anything to say.

Dorothea takes his hand, folding her slender fingers over his. She helps him to his feet, letting her hands stray beneath his waistcoat as she does. But she doesn’t go any further, looking up at him with that fearful expression and pressing her lips together.

“We’ve sure had our differences,” she says quietly, and Ferdinand can only nod again. “I want you to know, Ferdie, before you go. You ain’t like the other rich men. You may be dense as a brick--”

“I object!”

“--but you have a good heart, and it’s in the right place.” 

She pulls a handkerchief from the folds of her dress, tucking it into his breast pocket. Once it’s in, she places her hand over the pocket, her palm just above his heart. Ferdinand holds her hand there, just for a moment; his hand freckled and callused and rough, hers pale and smooth and delicate as lace.

“Whatever happens,” he murmurs, “you will look after them?”

“Your family?” she asks with a frown, but Ferdinand shakes his head. 

“My family will be fine. No, look out for the others. Caspar needs a guiding hand to steady him. Bernadetta, too. And Petra, when she is around. Lord knows she could do with a friend in this town.”

“Ferdie,” Dorothea whispers. “You’re saying that like it’s the end--”

He squeezes her hand a little harder. “It may well be.”

Her eyes are already full of concern, but she shakes her head. “You won’t let him win, Ferdie. I believe in you--”

Ferdinand places a finger to her lips to shush her. Then his thumb, brushing her lower lip and parting them ever so slightly. Dorothea tilts her head to one side, brown eyes peering up from behind her lashes, emotion bringing a flush of colour to her cheeks. She rises onto her toes, Ferdinand dips his head, and they lean in.

She takes his head in her hands and presses a gentle kiss to his lips. 

It only lasts a heartbeat, but to Ferdinand it could have been forever. Her skin is soft against his own, leaving an afterglow wherever she goes, and he closes his eyes as he gives in to her touch. He goes to reach for her waist and draw her closer, but Dorothea steps back before he can find her.

They part quietly and without ceremony. 

“That was for luck,” she says quietly. She touches up her lipstick with her thumb. Then she reaches up to wipe the smear from his face, to stifle the rumours before they can start.

Ferdinand watches her as she does. He wants nothing more than to wrap her in his arms, to pull her into an embrace and hold her close, but she’s made her position very clear. He loops his fingers into his gun belt, and keeps his hands to himself.

“Perhaps we could do it again, when all this is over.”

She shakes her head. Despite the smile on her face, she doesn't seem convinced. But she strokes down his cheek with her thumb, cupping his chin in her hand. “Someday, perhaps. But not now.”

Dorothea is right: the sound of hoofbeats thunders from the South, echoing through the high street. That great black horse rounds the corner to the church just as the clock hits five minutes to twelve.

Right on time.

Ferdinand had done his research. The man’s name was Hubert Vestra, and he’d been sixteen years old on the night of the fire. Now he stands six foot two and imposing, swinging down from the saddle to meet Ferdinand outside the church. Well-worn boots barely stir the dust as he walks, his collar pulled up high to mask his face. Ferdinand walks over slowly, hand resting on the gun at his hip. Hubert lifts his chin to look down on him.

“Von Aegir,” he says, voice dry as the desert. He looks over to Dorothea with the cold eyes of an apex predator. “Did I catch you at a bad time? I can wait until you and your… _companion_ are finished.”

“Vestra,” Ferdinand replies. “No, you are right on time.”

“Good.”

They stare at each other for a moment, Ferdinand glaring at those pale eyes, Hubert looking back with a twisted smile and a knowing expression. Fear creeps up Ferdinand’s spine again, no matter how much he tries to keep it down.

“You are alone?” he asks, and Hubert nods. 

“Lady Edelgard insisted she should come. She almost rode off without me. But half a gram of chloral hydrate in her morning coffee put her at rest. She will not disturb us, of that much I can assure you.”

Ferdinand doesn’t know what chloral hydrate is, and nor does he want to. “And you are armed?”

In reply, Hubert pulls back his coat to reveal an exquisite-looking pistol inlaid with ivory and gold. “Taken from House Hresvelg as the flames consumed all we knew. Fitting, don’t you think?”

“Indeed.”

The nerves are starting to show, now: Ferdinand can hardly find the words to speak, and his heart is beating so hard it feels like it might burst. 

“Your terms?” Hubert asks, calm as still water.

“Backs turned,” Ferdinand says. “Ten paces each. At the toll of the church bell, we draw.”

“I wish you luck, then.”

He nods. “And you.”

There aren’t many people around: Dorothea, leaning against the church alcove; the flicker of motion in the window that was Bernadetta. A few of the town’s more notorious gossipers stand between the houses, watching with bated breath. And the vultures fly above, still wheeling. 

If this is how he dies, Ferdinand considers, then he dies in defence of his family. There is no more noble way to go. 

The seconds tick down to high noon. The vultures caw and cry overhead. Tumbleweed passes, crickets chirp, and the clock hands move to one minute to twelve.

Hubert turns his back, and Ferdinand does the same. He can feel Hubert’s back pressed against his own, the shift of his shoulder as they both rest right hands upon their weapons. Neither of them look back.

He breathes in, then out.

“Ten paces,” Ferdinand says, “and we shoot when the bell rings high noon.”

Hubert dips his head in agreement. “Ten paces.”

They both step forward. 

One pace.

_Bernadetta shifts in her window, peeking over the sill._

Two.

_Petra, watching silently from afar._

Three.

_Caspar and Linhardt, one bouncing nervously, one still._

Four.

_Dorothea looks at him and smiles, her kiss still burning against his lips._

Five--

A gunshot fills the air. Pain tears through Ferdinand’s back, white-hot and fierce. He can only stare straight ahead, a quiet cry of confusion and pain escaping him.

Dorothea’s face turns to horror. She screams his name, but she’s too late.

Ferdinand reaches up to his chest, to the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket now stained red-black with blood. His hands shake. His vision blurs. He can’t breathe. And his gun lies still in its holster, unused.

He staggers around to face Hubert, the barrel of his gun still smoking. The pain makes it impossible to focus, the world edged with white light.

“You--” Ferdinand says quietly, disbelieving. He sways forward, his head starting to spin. The burning in his chest roars to an inferno, and he lets out another cry of betrayal and pain. Tears prick in his eyes. “You _cheated."_

“Foolish boy,” Hubert spits. “Now stay down.”

Another gunshot, and Ferdinand’s leg goes out from underneath him. He crumples into the dirt, the pain fading until he can feel nothing at all.

The church bell tolls noon.

He tries to get up, to call for help, but his throat is dry and his body will not move. Even the slightest motion is too much to bear, and fire blazes through his body every time he tries to raise his hand. All he can do is lie in the dust and wait for the life to bleed out of him.

Hoofbeats pass his head, that great black horse thundering off towards the von Aegir estate. They were going to kill his father one way or another, Ferdinand knows that now. All he had done is delayed the inevitable.

Hubert was right. He _was_ a fool.

There are arms around him, rolling him over onto his back. Soft hands holding his, so much tighter than before. And a honeyed voice whispering his name like a prayer.

Ferdinand draws a shaky breath. The taste of blood fills his mouth. He squints against the sun at the figure above him, white skirts now patchy with dirt and blood. There’s a sharp ache in his shoulder and his thigh, but the pain in his heart eclipses it all.

“Dorothea,” he breathes, but she shushes him. She brushes his hair from his forehead, stroking down his face and wiping away the tears streaking across his cheeks. Her sparkling green eyes are full of anguish and grief, dulling their usual shine.

“Ferdie--”

“I am sorry,” he says. He entwines his fingers with Dorothea’s. He can’t even reach up to brush the tears from her eyes, no matter how much he wants to.

“Ferdinand,” she starts, but her voice breaks. “Ferdinand, please. Don’t you go anywhere. I’ll get Linhardt, I’ll find someone, they’ll come fix you. You’ll be alright, Ferdie, just stay awake for me.”

He brings her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers as the world goes dark around him. She really is beautiful, the sunlight above her like a halo around her head. She’s an angel, a shooting star, a little piece of heaven that’s fallen to earth.

If Dorothea is to be the last thing he sees, then so be it.

“Forgive me,” he whispers. “Please forgive me.”

Ferdinand von Aegir closes his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-explicit hetty sexytimes about a quarter of the way down. Skip to the break if it ain't your thing.

San Adrestia, New Mexico

July 1878

The stars sit low in the sky, diamonds against the black. 

Dorothea leans against her balcony. She balances a lit cigarette in her right hand, a glass of house whiskey cradled in her left. She’s perched on her tiptoes, biting on her bottom lip, hair falling around her face. Those beautiful green eyes are vacant. A sip of liquor, a drag on the cigarette, a stare that carries a hundred miles out into the desert.

The barrens stretch out beyond the town for as far as the eye can see. The train line still wasn’t finished, the promised link to the city never coming. After that day the town had all but collapsed in on itself, torn apart in fire and gunpowder and blood.

It had been nearly three years since then, three years that had stretched on for far too long. 

Dorothea had changed in that time, not beyond recognition but certain as the sun rises. Gone was the flirtatious girl of years prior. She’d grown a little older, a little wiser. Become guarded behind closed doors in a way she never was before. Sure, the smile remained, the voice and the cheeky glint in her eyes that made men fall at her feet. But beneath the nighttime entertainment was something altogether different.

She’d made the step from girl to woman. The gift of her body in exchange for the empty promise of a man who never came back.

Something had turned inside her after that night. The youthful guile had evaporated, her carefree attitude replaced with caution. And she’d taken far more care in selecting her clients: San Adrestia was a small place, and talk spread like wildfire. If she was to have any hope of getting out of this two-bit small town saloon, she couldn’t afford to sully her name.

“It is getting late, you know.”

She turns around to face the voice, the shape of a man silhouetted in the doorway.

“Twenty dollars for half an hour, sweetheart. I don’t sing for free no more.”

He clears his throat. “You know that is not why I am here.”

The man steps out onto the balcony, draping a shawl across her shoulders. She’s met with a small, thin-lipped smile and amber eyes looking just as tired as she feels.

Ferdinand had changed too, more than just the bullet scars and the overgrown hair. His voice had become a little harsher, his eyes a little darker. There’s a stiffness in his left leg as he walks, unnoticeable to the untrained eye but obvious to those that knew him.

Dorothea nods in thanks as she takes the shawl from him, but she makes her displeasure clear.

“I can look after myself, Ferdie.”

“Of course you can,” he whispers. The wound aches in his chest, the tiny pieces of bullet residue starting to sting. Three years on, and despite the way everything had changed, nothing had changed at all.

The night air is dry as a bone and filled with the screech of cicadas, every breath hot and sharp and scratching at his lungs. Dorothea clutches at her shawl, wrapping it tighter around herself as if she wants to disappear inside. She’s wearing a high-collar dress, too, so different to her usual provocative evening attire, and her body is poised as if she’s trying to hide.

Something about it makes Ferdinand uneasy, and it’s only when she lifts her chin to speak does her realise what it is.

“May I?” he murmurs, reaching up to sweep her hair aside. She flinches, closing her eyes in resignation. And when she opens them again, her gaze drops from the desert to the wooden floor beneath her feet.

She nods, but that excuse still hovers on her lips. “It ain’t nothing, Ferdie, I swear. I just--”

Her words fall away as deft fingers unlace her collar, pulling back the fabric to reveal the bruising around her throat. Red kisses under her jaw, spots of purple-black and faded green in the size and shape of a man’s hand.

“That does not look like nothing to me,” he says. “Who did this to you, Dorothea?”

A wave of her wrist, a dismissive flick of her fingers. “It don’t matter. He paid well enough.”

“That is not what I meant.” Ferdinand tries not to let the concern into his voice, but he can’t keep it out. “You said you would never--”

“Perhaps it’s time you went back to the bar, now.” Dorothea ties her collar back in place, combing her hair through her fingers so it falls to hide the damage. She smiles at him, and it’s like the bruises were never there.

But Ferdinand won’t let it go. “I thought you said I drink too much,” he teases, and that smile falters. 

“You do,” comes the reply. Dorothea takes the glass from his hand, setting it down on the balustrade. It’s his third of the night, maybe his fourth. It didn’t matter. He’d had a long day. He deserved this.

Besides, he’d stopped keeping count of his drinks three years ago.

He reaches for his glass back, but Dorothea gets there first. “That’s enough for tonight,” she warns.

“You are right, of course, but it would be a crying shame to waste it--”

She walks back into her room and sets the tumbler down on her dressing table. Ferdinand trails behind her, unsure of what she wants. He picks up the glass as soon as her back is turned, downing the double measure without so much as a sound.

“Close the shutters behind you,” she asks, pretending not to have noticed. Ferdinand is quick to do as she says. With the stars blocked out, the only light is the gas lamp by her bed, casting much of her room into shadow. Dorothea drops onto her bed, pulling the sash from around her waist. She looks up at him from behind those long eyelashes, but she says nothing.

“I am sorry,” Ferdinand starts, falling back on polite, businesslike speech. He took his role as sheriff a little too seriously nowadays. “I was told that you wanted to see me. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I would like you to kiss me.”

Her reply catches Ferdinand off-guard. 

“I beg your pardon?” he asks, certain his ears have deceived him. But Dorothea shakes her head, that same sad half-smile on her face that he’d shown her just a minute prior.

“I want you to kiss me, _sheriff,_ ” she says again. Her eyes are wide in the dim light, her face painted with apprehension. She rests her left hand on the bed next to her, stroking down the sheets at her side. “I mean it.”

Heat blooms in Ferdinand’s chest, fire amidst the cold pieces of shot just above his heart. He frowns, trying to find the words.

“You rebuked my attempts at romance,” he starts, unsure where to stand. “I tried to court you, until you said you were not interested.”

A nod. “I did.”

“And after that, I ceased all romantic endeavours.”

“You did.”

“But now you want me.”

Another nod. Dorothea winds a lock of hair between her fingers, dark brown and soft against the coarse linens of her bed. “Things are different now, Ferdie. But you don’t have to, not if you ain’t--”

The bed creaks under his weight as he sits down next to her, unbuckling his gun belt and holster, then laying the whole ensemble down on the floor. He takes her slender fingers in his.

“You are beautiful,” he whispers. “And graceful, compassionate and true. Any man would be a fool to turn you down.”

“Then you’d better not disappoint me, Ferdie,” she teases. “Don’t you keep a lady waiting, now--”

She’s cut off.

Ferdinand cups her jaw in one hand, the other one still holding her tight. He presses his lips gently against hers, a silent question waiting for an answer. 

And after a second of hesitation, Dorothea affirms everything.

She never fails to take his breath away, even after all this time.

She places her hand over his left pectoral, his heart racing beneath the tight knot of scar tissue. There’s a matching scar on his back, a memory raised across his skin. The one on his thigh is smaller, neater, but still there are mountains and caverns in the muscle where fragments of shot remain. She knows the details far too well.

This isn’t the first time they’ve played this game, after all.

Dorothea pulls away. “Take off your boots,” she says quietly. Ferdinand complies in silence, leaving the boots at the foot of her bed. He stares at the dusty leather for a second, before finally realising what she means.

He clambers up onto the bed until his body is pressed up against hers. Strong arms wrap around her shoulders, foreheads pressed together in silent agreement. He guides her down onto the pillows, holding her body as gently as if she were made of glass. He caresses her face as they kiss, but Dorothea moves his hands to her hips, her waist. One hand reaches below her thigh, pulling her knee up so he has a hold. And the next kiss is different to the one before, fiercer and more passionate than the last. Her face is hot and flushed next to his.

Dorothea breaks from the embrace, just for a moment. She inhales with a quiet gasp, her chest heaving as she breathes. She pushes back against him, arching her back and sweeping her hair aside.

Ferdinand helps her to unlace her collar, then the fastenings down the back of her dress. The top half of the fabric falls away, revealing her throat, her shoulders, her chest. Behind the bruises her skin is pale in the flickering lamplight, just enough warmth there to convince Ferdinand that she is indeed of this world and not an angel fallen to earth after all.

Still, he averts his eyes away from her exposed breasts. He’s all-too aware of her body beneath him, of his own growing arousal. 

“Ferdie,” she pleads. And then: “Ferdinand.”

“Dorothea?”

“Please.”

She reaches up to unbutton his outer layers. His heavy overcoat, first, then the waistcoat beneath. His belt is unbuckled, his trousers loosened at the waist. The sheriff’s star makes a soft _thunk_ as it hits the floor, muffled enough by the carpet that the patrons in the bar below won’t hear a thing. 

Ferdinand leans in for another kiss, but already her hands are sneaking up beneath his shirt, her fingers ice-cold against his skin. He holds back for long enough to pull his shirt off, but then his lips are back on Dorothea’s, his tongue against hers. Their breathing has quickened, now, his hips and shoulders starting to rock as she presses herself into him. He crawls forward so he’s fully atop her, one hand pressed into the pillows either side of her head.

That heat builds in his gut, his body starting to move of its own accord. Soft motions with his knee spread her legs apart. 

But something feels wrong. 

Ferdinand can’t put his finger on what it is, but he pulls away from Dorothea, recoiling in shock at his own actions. Thankfully his lower half is still clothed, and he shifts in discomfort as he tries to hide his shame.

“Why?” he asks, backing off until he’s kneeling at her feet. “Why are you-- why _me_?”

“Because I trust you.”

The answer comes quickly, honestly. Dorothea crosses her arms over her chest, even though he’s already seen enough. But her words bear a truth she can’t deny, that no matter what might have been, their fates are entwined.

Arms folded, she squeezes her shoulder as if nervous, her gaze anywhere but him. “I trust you,” she says again. 

“Are you quite sure?” he continues. “I know you have history when it comes to men. I am not concerned for myself, but I fear for your reputation were this to--”

“Just for tonight,” she says, cutting him off. “It don’t mean I want you again. I just want to feel loved.”

Ferdinand reaches up to her shoulder, her neck, the marks there fading but not gone for good. His thumb wanders over the contours and curves of her lips. His voice is a whisper. 

“I will do whatever you ask of me.”

“Can you do this for me, Ferdie?” Dorothea asks, her fingers tracing up his thigh. The heat in his chest trails down his legs wherever her fingertips go. “Just for tonight.”

“I--” he starts, but he has nothing to say. He can only nod his head silently as he sets her down again, one hand supporting her back, one wrapped around her breast. “Yes,” he breathes, hitching up her skirt and running weathered palms along her thigh. He leans into her chest, pressing kisses up her breastbone, along her collar, up to where the bruises mark her neck. Each word is punctuated with a touch. 

“Yes,” he whispers again, “I believe I can do that.”

He buries his fingers between her thighs to bring her close to the edge, then takes her the way she was made to be. They move together, every motion becoming faster and harder until Dorothea breathes his name and they drop back into the linens as one.

They lie there once they’re done, tangled together like lovers. Ferdinand kisses her lips, her chest, her neck, combing his fingers through her hair until she falls asleep. Her breathing evens out, her body warm against his in the afterglow of what could so easily be mistaken for love. He knows it’s not real, that it’s an arrangement of convenience and nothing else. But just for tonight he gets to wrap her in his arms, to hold her close and fall asleep together as if they were so much more. 

Ferdinand whispers a goodnight that she cannot hear. He rests his head against hers and counts the heartbeat beneath his fingers until sleep takes him.

~.*.~

Ferdinand leaves just before sunrise.

He collects his belt and boots and gets dressed as quietly as he can. He beats the dust from his chaps and coat, picking his hat from the stand by the door. His hand hovers over the doorknob, but he doesn’t leave quite yet.

Before he goes, he kneels down next to Dorothea’s bed, her naked body still tangled in the sheets. Ferdinand brushes the hair from her face and takes a second to admire her sleeping form, the closed eyes and slight frown, the gentle sigh as she shifts beneath the covers.

He leaves a soft kiss on her cheek as a parting gift.

The stairs creak beneath his feet as he descends. The morning sun peeks over the horizon, the cold morning winds whipping his hair around his face. Absentminded, he pulls the tangled mane into a loose ponytail, then reaches into his pocket for a cigarette. The hiss of a match, the taste of scorched tobacco, then smoke tainting the morning air. 

Ferdinand leans back against the saloon door and watches the sun rise.

He rubs his eyes, trying to push back the tiredness. He’d kill a man for a good cup of tea, but all they had at the office was cheap coffee, bitter grounds that tasted like dirt. Once again it hits him how much he had taken for granted as a young man, how easily everything had been laid at his feet.

No longer, it seems.

He drops the cigarette butt to the ground, grinding it into the dust with his boot. He scowls as the sunlight glares into his eyes, making the ache in his skull flare up. The headache refuses to let up no matter how much he drinks.

Still, a little hair of the dog would certainly help to take the edge off.

Ferdinand walks the short distance through town to the sheriff’s office. He had called it his own for nearly two years, now, his position won fairly and legally through his own hard work and nothing more. The knowledge offers little comfort.

The church bell tolls six as he unlocks the office. His horse is in a stable to the left of the house, already awake and eager for her morning feed. She whinnies enthusiastically as he enters, ears pricked up.

Ferdinand ignores the animal, instead going to the tack store at the side. There, tucked away in his panniers: a small hip flask engraved with his initials, a birthday gift from his father. 

He washes his mouth out with cheap whiskey. Then a quick drink, just to clear his head.

Guilty, he replaces the screw cap, stashing the rest of the liquor away for another time. He’ll head back upstairs to his living quarters, catch a couple of hours’ sleep until Caspar wakes him. Then he’ll see to the day’s duties, settle a few neighbourly disputes and fill out paperwork until he locks up the office and heads back to the saloon. The cycle continues, the same day repeating over and over. It was nothing like he’d imagined as a boy, playing cowboys and indians across his father’s land.

He goes to leave, but not before tending to his horse, leading her outside to feed and stretch her legs. Callused fingers run through the tangled mane, scratching the old beast behind the ears until they’re both calm and content. 

Ferdinand pulls the brim of his hat down against the sun and heads back to the office. But the thunder of hooves down the street makes him turn on his heel, watching the scruffy skewbald and its rider as they approach.

“Ferdinand, sir!” comes the shout. Caspar tries to wrestle his horse to a halt, but riding had never been his strong point, and he overshoots by thirty yards. “I got news, sir,” he calls, “and you ain’t gonna like it.”

“You are early,” Ferdinand replies. Caspar normally ran the night watch over the town, and wouldn’t be back before eight o’clock. He’d better have a damn good reason to abandon his duty so soon.

“Petra said she saw two people out in the barrens last night,” he says as he approaches, red in the face from riding. Unsteady, he dismounts, dropping to the dirt road below. “A man and a woman, one black horse, one white. They made camp about ten, maybe twelve miles outta town. I think it might be Hresvelg and Vestra, sir. You should come quick--”

Ferdinand’s blood runs cold. 

“Where are they?” he asks, grabbing the kid by the lapels of his jacket. Caspar recoils in shock, but Ferdinand shakes him as if that’ll yield the answers he desires. “Tell me, Caspar.”

“By the old fort -- the one leftover from the war. North, just past the river. I can show you--”

“No, you stay here,” he warns, a dangerous spike in his voice that hushes Caspar into silence. “Do not follow me. You can tell Dorothea where I have gone, but you are not to come after me. Do you understand?”

“Ferdinand, sir--” he starts, but he’s quickly cut off.

“Caspar,” Ferdinand snaps. “That is an order. Stay in San Adrestia or I will shoot you where you stand.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. His horse is prepared in a matter of minutes, and he hauls himself into his saddle and kicks the creature into action. The old mare whinnies in protest but sets off at a canter, and he spurs the horse up to a gallop. Guilt festers inside him at the way he’d treated Caspar -- and Dorothea before him, and Petra, and Linhardt, after all the doctor had done -- but Ferdinand pushes the feeling back. He had every right to be angry.

The pair of outlaws had taken everything from him.

_Everything._

The edge of town passes by, then the railway line. The desert stretches out ahead, dust making it difficult to breathe. Ferdinand pulls his scarf up to cover his face as he rides. Despite it all, the phantom smell of smoke fills his lungs as he passes what was left of his father’s estate.

His heart thunders in time with the hoofbeats, his left leg aching with every movement. He can barely keep his thoughts in order: it had been years since the outlaws had last shown their faces, and now they had the audacity to return to Adrestian lands. Why come back after all this time? Why come back at all? What more did they want to take from him?

Maybe this time he could finish the job.

The miles disappear behind him.

Ferdinand follows the river until San Adrestia is but a mirage in the heat, out to where the outcrops of rock offer the only shade. A post sticks up from the mud by the riverbank. There’s a flash of red fabric tied around it, a flame fluttering in the morning breeze. Two feathers are tucked into the fabric; one black, one white. It’s a message from Petra, a sign that he’s going the right way.

With a gentle tug of the reins, Ferdinand slows his horse to a trot as he approaches the fort. The old structure was a relic from the war, abandoned years ago. Still the wooden walls loom dark and imposing on the horizon, the watchtower rising high above the land. And just out of sight behind a rugged stack of rock, a hastily-constructed camp made for two. A small fire smoulders with the morning porridge bubbling away in a pan, two horses tied to a post outside the tents.

There’s a woman by the fire, white-haired and petite, a man dressed in black at her side. The scar above Ferdinand’s heart burns at the sight.

He digs his heels into the horse’s flanks, pushing it to a gallop. He grabs the six-shooter from his hip. The distance closes in seconds, and by the time the outlaws look up, it’s too late.

He screams as he rides into their camp at full pelt, catching Hubert with a kick to the head and sending him sprawling to the floor. Edelgard screams his name, diving for cover behind the horses. They exchange gunshots, but neither of them can hit their target; the smoke from the fire makes it difficult to see, and Ferdinand’s horse is skittering in fear with every shot. Hot ash and embers fill the air, the fire sputtering as his horse tramples the flames. Edelgard throws her tomahawk towards him, and his horse bucks and screams as he pulls on the reins to avoid it. 

Ferdinand tries to wrestle his horse back under control, but it’s a losing battle. The beast staggers on two legs, and for all Ferdinand holds on he can’t stay in the saddle.

He hits the floor with a _crack._ Pain runs up his spine, but he rolls to his feet, reaching out for his gun. Somewhere behind him Hubert calls out to Edelgard, screaming for her to go, to finish what she started.

She looks back, almost rueful. And then she’s up on the back of her horse, galloping away as fast as it will take her.

Ferdinand pulls the trigger, but the shot goes wide. And another, then a third. And then the chamber is empty, the weapon clicking uselessly as he shoots out at nothing. He screams as he staggers up to his feet, grabbing his horse by the reins and going to chase after her. But a groan from behind him brings him to his senses, forcing his attention to the body at his feet.

Rationally, he knows he should go after Edelgard, that all this revolves around her and not the man in black lying winded on the ground. But Ferdinand doesn’t care for logic, not right now.

“Vestra,” he hisses.

Hubert looks up at Ferdinand and grits his teeth against the pain. He makes a quiet _heh_ sound, then lets his head drop back into the dirt.

“So you survived,” he says. “I shoulda shot you in the head when I had the chance.”

“Perhaps you should have. But you did not.” 

Ferdinand tries to reassure his horse, patting down the beast’s sweat-streaked flanks. He keeps Hubert in his peripheral as he leads the horse to the river, tying the reins up against a crooked tree stunted by the heat. He’s not letting that man out of his sight. He can't afford to do that.

Still, he reloads his revolver as he approaches, sliding six new rounds into place. He cocks the weapon again, then trains it against the outlaw's head.

"One wrong move and I shoot, Vestra."

Hubert shields his eyes from the sun with his hand. It’s clear to see he’s winded, every movement stiff and punctuated with a sharp grunt of pain. He tries to get to his feet but his head lolls forward and he ends up sprawled in the dirt once more.

Finger on the trigger, Ferdinand approaches with caution. He can see both of Hubert’s hands, sure, and he doesn’t seem to be in any state to fight back, but Ferdinand can’t be certain. Not with him.

“Do your worst,” comes a weak voice, still disoriented from the impact but getting stronger with every second that passes. 

Ferdinand can’t leave it any longer.

He crouches down and pulls the bandolier of knives from around Hubert’s waist, then the blade tucked into his right boot. A quick pat down doesn’t yield any more concealed weapons, but Ferdinand’s old six-shooter doesn't stray far from the outlaw's forehead. He hauls Hubert up by the collar of his shirt, easing up only when he lets out a strangled choking noise.

“Hands out,” Ferdinand says, and Hubert does as he’s told, extending both clenched fists out at hip height. He already knows what’s coming, and he doesn’t fight it. “Hubert Vestra,” Ferdinand continues, snapping a pair handcuffs around Hubert’s wrists. “I am arresting you for the cold-blooded murder of three men, conspiracy to commit murder, and resisting arrest. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“I do not.” Hubert’s voice is a slick of oil on the surface of water. Just the sound of it makes Ferdinand’s blood boil in his veins.

“Then you are to be taken back to San Adrestia,” he spits, “and tried in front of a judge and jury for your crimes. Do you--”

“Look at you now,” Hubert interrupts, a cruel smile on his lips despite the bruises forming across his face. “Little Ferdie von Aegir, still playing sheriff. Oh, but he’s all grown up now daddy isn’t here--”

Ferdinand punches him in the face.

The shock of it cuts Hubert short and he stumbles backwards, tripping over his own feet and landing on his backside. His eyes widen in surprise, and he lifts bound hands to his mouth. His bottom lip is split open and blood drips from his nose, forming rivers that trickle down his face. His teeth are stained red.

 _"Heh,_ ” he says again, but the smile is gone. “That weren’t very gentlemanly of you.”

“You are no gentleman,” Ferdinand replies. His clenched fist still trembles at his side. “If you act like a common cheat then I will treat you as such. Now get up, Vestra.”

He fetches a length of rope from his saddle, tying it a little too tightly around Hubert’s wrists and hauling the man back to his feet. It’s an extra layer of security on top of the handcuffs, with a tail end to the rope maybe twenty feet long. Despite his predicament, Hubert doesn’t struggle or try to get free, instead standing stock still with his hands tied in front of him. That ghost of a smile remains no matter what.

Ferdinand takes a step back, then another. He yanks on the rope and Hubert stumbles forward. The knots hold firm.

“You will come back to San Adrestia to face your crimes,” Ferdinand says, affixing the tail end of the rope to his saddle. “It should not take too long to walk back. Four hours, perhaps. If you walk real quick we should miss the heat of the day, before the vultures descend to pick your eyes from your skull.”

Hubert laughs at that, a harsh sound that’s gone as soon as it starts. 

“My, how you’ve changed, Ferdinand.”

“You have no idea.”

Ferdinand slots his foot into the stirrup, then swings his other leg over and settles back into his saddle. 

“Walk on,” he says to the horse, squeezing with his knees until she ambles forward. Hubert has no choice but to follow, dragged along by the wrists. He scurries to catch up, but Ferdinand warns him against it. “I would not get too close, if I were you. The horse kicks. You had best keep your distance, Vestra.”

Hubert grunts in acknowledgement, but he says nothing else.

The miles pass in silence, much slower than before. The sun moves across the sky, getting higher by the hour. Out here there is no sound but the steady trudge of hooves, the erratic scuffle of boots in the dirt. Even the wildlife has fallen silent.

Ferdinand knows deep down that Hubert is probably -- no, _definitely_ \-- plotting his escape, but he doesn’t care. He keeps the horse at a slow, steady walk, no faster than necessary. Still he checks behind him every few seconds, keeping an eye on the outlaw just in case. The first hour he’d been fine, but the second and third he’d been increasingly sluggish, scuffing his feet against the floor and stumbling every few paces to catch up. Hubert’s head is bowed as if in exhaustion, and with nothing to protect him from the sun, his skin was starting to burn.

The man deserves nothing more than to drop dead here and now, but still Ferdinand halts his horse, carefully dismounting. His eyes never once leave his captive, not even when he pulls his revolver from its holster.

“Vestra,” he calls. “Are you--”

Hubert looks up at him through a fringe matted with sweat and dust, then drops to his knees. 

Ferdinand swears, inching ever-closer to the outlaw. He stays just out of reach should Hubert try anything, but he needn’t have worried. Hubert is in no state to be attempting an escape: his head is bowed, hands shaking, lips cracked in the midday heat. His shirt is stuck to his skin with sweat, his forehead pale and clammy to the touch.

Those pale eyes are almost closed, but he raises his head enough to glare at Ferdinand before slumping back down again.

“You need out of the sun,” Ferdinand says quietly. “And water.”

Hubert tries to bite back a response, but his voice is hoarse. The stare remains though, icy-cold in the midday heat.

Ferdinand swears again, pulling off his hat and placing it atop Hubert’s head. “I doubt it will offer you much comfort,” he says quietly, “but it should protect your face from the worst of the sun.”

He doesn’t get any thanks. He didn’t expect any.

The horse huffs impatiently, and he goes to his panniers to fetch his canteen. In his peripheral, Hubert barely moves, but his body slumps a little more. He’s coming dangerously close to heat exhaustion, and they both know it.

Ignoring the hip flask in his panniers -- _later,_ he tells himself -- Ferdinand pulls out the canteen instead, offering it straight to Hubert without a second thought.

“Drink,” he says.

“You would offer me this?” Hubert asks, and Ferdinand can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. He licks his lips, chapped and dehydrated. “Why?”

“I am not a monster. Every man deserves a little decency.”

“You punched me in the face.”

“And you shot me,” Ferdinand counters. “Twice. Now do you want a drink or not?”

Hubert hangs his head, but there’s enough of a nod there for Ferdinand to take the hint. Still Hubert is defiant, his voice even rougher than before. 

“I cannot,” he says quietly. “My hands are tied.”

Ferdinand frowns, unscrewing the cap to the canteen. It’s still mostly full, enough for another stop should they need it. Sunlight glints off the water within, the summer heat warming the metal in his hand. 

“Try anything and I will shoot you,” he says. “Do I make myself clear?”

Another nod, in resignation this time. Ferdinand grabs Hubert by the chin, tilting his face up until they can see eye to eye. In his other hand, he holds the canteen of water, placing the edge up to Hubert’s lips and lifting the canteen until the water runs down his face. 

“Drink,” Ferdinand says again, now a command. Hubert has no choice but to comply.

They stay like that for a while, Hubert on his knees, Ferdinand stood dangerously close and getting closer one sip at a time. After an agonisingly long minute, Ferdinand pulls away, taking his turn with the canteen until thirst no longer burns his throat.

“We are two hours out, maybe a little more,” he says, crouching down next to Hubert. “Do you think you can make that?”

“I’ll be fine,” comes the reply, that icy disdain making its way back into his voice. “Thank you for your concern.”

Hubert’s voice is carefully-measured, oh-so civil. Ferdinand nods in reply, looking him over.

“You are still bleeding,” he says, and Hubert rolls his eyes. 

“How observant of you.”

Ferdinand pulls the handkerchief from his pocket, the white linen stained with patches of faded red-brown. He douses it in water from the canteen, wiping the worst of the sweat, dust and blood from Hubert’s face. No wonder the heat had been affecting him, what with the summer sun and his injuries. 

After a few seconds, he reaches up to bat the interfering hands away. “I don’t need your charity, Ferdinand.”

“You are alright?” Ferdinand asks, but he’s quickly dismissed.

“I told you, I’ll be fine. Your chivalry will get you nowhere.”

He grabs Hubert by the collar of his shirt again, pulling the outlaw back to his feet. “Holler if you need to take a break,” Ferdinand warns. “We will be back in San Adrestia by two o’clock. Try not to collapse, this time.”

With a grunt, he goes to get back on the horse, but that hollow voice calls him back.

“Corruption is spreading across your state like a rot, and all you care about is trading playground insults with me.”

He turns to face Hubert, pale eyes hidden by the wide brim of his hat. “Are you still chasing those men after all these years? Was my father not enough?” he asks, accusing. “How many more need to die before you are satisfied?”

“We need to put a stop to it at the source or it’ll just rear up again. We made that mistake with the mayor. If you want this slaughter to stop, we have go straight to the top--”

“He was my father, Vestra!”

“They were all someone’s father,” comes the reply, calculated and cold. “That don’t mean they’re exempt from their crimes.”

Anger flares inside him, a sudden red-hot spike. Ferdinand turns on his heel, storming over to jab Hubert in the chest. “You didn’t have to burn the _goddamn_ house down!”

All he gets in reply is that cold smile, the grin of an apex predator moving in for the kill. “Ah, and the noble front falls away. That’s a damned relief. I was growing tired of your attitude. As for the house, that was Lady Edelgard’s idea. She thought it’d be cathartic.”

Ferdinand wants to scream, but he bottles up the anger inside. He’s shed enough tears for this man.

“And what if it was your own father?” he spits, pushing up into Hubert’s personal space. He butts heads with Hubert, staring straight at him. Every word comes from behind gritted teeth. “Would your father be collateral damage as well? Would you shoot him in the head and set the house alight around him?”

That smile again, that smug, cruel smile.

“Poison,” comes Hubert’s reply, as dry and quiet as the shift of the sands around them. There’s no trace of feeling in his words. “I didn’t shoot my father. I poisoned him myself. Sliced his palm with the venom of a pit viper and watched his heart give out in front of me.” Even with his hands tied, Hubert steps up to Ferdinand until they’re chest to chest, an acceptance of his challenge. “And when my father had thrown up and shat his guts out, when his screams fell silent and his heart had finally stopped, I felt no remorse for giving him a death more painful than you could ever imagine.” He lets his words hang in the air for a moment, to let the tension simmer between them. “Don’t challenge me, Ferdinand,” he says, ever-so softly. “This is not a game you can win.”

Ferdinand takes a step back. Then another. Disgust starts to replace the anger in his chest, a sick feeling that spreads up from his stomach.

“You are a psychopath,” he says. “You disgust me, you and Edelgard both. And to think I took pity on you.”

He snatches his hat back from Hubert’s head, leaving him to squint against the sun. Ferdinand doesn’t look back as he mounts his horse again, ignoring the shout of “I did only what Lady Edelgard asked of me!” from behind him.

A click of his tongue and his horse sets off at a walking pace. He feels the rope tied around Hubert’s wrists tighten, then slacken again as the sound of footsteps follows behind him.

“Ferdinand, wait.”

He ignores it. The rope tightens again, once, twice, as if in plea.

“Ferdinand,” comes the voice again, softer than before. “Sheriff, please.”

He doesn’t halt the horse or slow it down, but he does glance over his shoulder in acknowledgement. “What do you want now, Vestra?”

“I need--” Hubert starts, but he trails off. “I need a comfort break,” he says eventually.

“What?”

“I gotta take a leak.”

This time it’s Ferdinand’s time to look down on the other man with disdain. For all his big talk, Hubert can’t stand being the bottom of the pecking order. Ironic how the tables have turned. 

Ferdinand lets his spite do the talking, throwing aside his noble heart. It didn’t matter, not out on the frontier, not to men like that. He’d learnt his lesson the hard way three years ago, and he still had the scars to remember it by.

His voice is harsh and coarse as the desert around them. “Piss yourself, for all I care.”

Hubert doesn’t reply. They walk on in silence.

Each minute stretches into eternity in the barrens. The midday sun scorches everything it touches, the only motion the rhythmic side to side movement of the horse, the buzz of flies and mosquitos around them. A few of the natives stare at Ferdinand from a distance, Brigid people with their distinctive tattoos and pale horses. There’s a small figure in the centre that he thinks might be Petra, but from this far away he cannot be sure. He raises his hand in greeting anyway, and receives a wave in return.

They move on.

Ferdinand returns to San Adrestia just as the church bell rings out two o’clock. He tips his hat at the ladies as he passes, that six-pointed star glinting on his chest. Bernadetta watches from her room in the church tower, Linhardt from his doorway, Dorothea from the balcony above the saloon. Ferdinand's legs chafe in the saddle, his back aches from the morning's ride, and his body is spotted with bruises all over from their earlier spat. But he doesn't care. He's got what he came for.

Hubert follows a few yards behind him, pulled by the wrists through the streets for everyone to see. He stumbles across the uneven ground, almost tripping in the wagon ruts that cross the street. The sun has not been kind to him: his skin is reddened and burnt, back slouched in exhaustion. And beneath that is a slew of cuts and bruises from their scuffle, blood crusting around his face and in the collar of his shirt.

It only takes a few minutes for Ferdinand to throw him into a jail cell, the tiny space too small for a tall man like him to lie down in. Ferdinand records what few details he knows about the man, and what scant information Hubert will give up. Even getting him to admit his date of birth is like trying to pull teeth. After half an hour of relentless interrogation that yields next to nothing, Ferdinand decides to get a breath of fresh air.

Caspar is waiting for him outside the office, playing (and losing) a game of solitaire with himself. He chews on the end of an unlit cigarette, looking up as the sheriff approaches. 

“Sir?” he asks. “You got me real worried. Almost thought you wouldn't come back. Only almost, though." His face runs through a series of expressions in time with his thoughts, eventually settling on concern. "You alright?”

Ferdinand shakes his head. “I am sorry for my outburst this morning. It was needlessly disrespectful of me. I was not feeling myself, but that was no excuse.”

“No shit,” Caspar replies. He abandons his cards, stuffing them into his back pocket and sitting down on the steps leading up to the office. “Thought being a gentleman was your thing.”

“It was.” 

“That Vestra guy got you real riled up, huh?” 

A quiet _hm_ is all Ferdinand offers in reply. He paces to and fro, distracted. “What if he was right, though?” he asks. “We know there is corruption everywhere from here to New Leicester. What if my father _was_ \--”

“That kinda thinking won’t get you nowhere, sir.” 

He sighs. “Perhaps you are right,” he murmurs, but he isn’t convinced.

“Hey, you know we’re in trouble if _I’m_ being the sensible one.” Caspar swings his feet to and fro, drawing circles in the dust. Ferdinand just watches as he thinks through Hubert’s words, no matter how much they hurt. This doesn't begin and end with Edelgard, no, it reaches much further than that. His thoughts turn over and over, reaching the only sane conclusion.

“I need a drink,” he decides. 

“You sure as hell don’t,” Caspar warns. “Come on, man. What happened to Ferdinand von Aegir, noblest of nobles?"

"He got shot in the chest three years ago."

"Maybe you really do need that drink, huh?"

"I am sorry," Ferdinand says with a shake of the head. "Go home, Caspar. This is not your fight. I do not wish for you to get caught up in this."

"But sir--"

"That is not up for negotiation."

"Sir," Caspar says again, but it's an acknowledgement this time. "Listen, you need me to beat some answers outta this son of a bitch, all you gotta do is call." He tries that wide, boyish grin and Ferdinand can't help but reply with a smile of his own. Caspar's enthusiasm is admirable and his heart is in the right place, no matter how misguided his methods may be.

"It is appreciated. If I need you, I will call."

It's not an official dismissal, but Caspar knows when he's not wanted. The kid starts to meander home, looking back over his shoulder every few yards as if expecting the young sheriff to break any second. But Ferdinand keeps his composure until Caspar is out of sight, only then letting the tension from his shoulders and reaching for the hip flask. Shaking hands uncap the flask, the familiar kick of the whiskey burning his throat as it goes down. He coughs, then exhales suddenly to try and rid the taste of alcohol from his mouth.

He knows why he drinks. The reason is sat in a cell in his office, a man that brings only death and destruction wherever he walks.

Ferdinand makes his decision. He needs answers.

He pushes open the door to the office, the cold inside a welcome respite from the New Mexico heat. The flask is hidden away in his desk, and he busies himself with paperwork for a while, just to keep Hubert waiting. Eventually he gets up, stretches, and walks over to the cells one uncertain step at a time. He rehearses his questions in his head, steeling his voice for the confrontation to come.

The iron is cool beneath his fingers as he wraps his hands around the bars to the smallest cell in the place. The cell is five feet one way and three feet the other, cold and damp and stinking of urine. Hubert is sat on the floor with his back to the wall, one hand balanced on his knee, the other on the floor next to him. He looks up at Ferdinand with that same self-assured expression, as if he was completely in control no matter the situation. There's contempt in his smile, the venom of a pit viper in his words.

"Ferdinand von Aegir," he says quietly, "back so soon. Tell me, did you miss me?"

"We need to talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ferdie’s a bit rough around the edges in this chapter. He’ll be back to normal soon enough, he’s just going through a tough time.
> 
> As always, comments make my day! Spare a little comment, save a writer?
> 
> Stay safe 🤠


	5. Chapter 5

Ferdinand stands in front of the cell, just out of reach. He loops his fingers into his gun belt, trying to appear more confident than he feels.

“I have questions.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do.” Hubert sits up, almost getting to his feet before he goes pale and slumps back to the floor of the cell. He spits out a curse, letting his head drop back against the wall. The sleeves of that tight black shirt have been rolled to the elbows, his collar unbuttoned and askew. His boots and belt had been confiscated upon arrival, just in case. And while Ferdinand had removed the handcuffs when he’d ended up in the cell, his wrists are still blistered and chafed raw, hands and forearms burnt in the sun.

“Are you recovered?” Ferdinand asks, and he gets a glare for his concern.

“You struck me at full gallop, then spent five hours dragging me across the barrens. It will take some time before I am recovered.”

“Of course,” he says with a nod. “That was insensitive of me. I can only apologise for the way I treated you before.”

Hubert watches him as he paces back and forth in front of the cell. His footfalls clatter against the floor, echoing off cold stone walls. For all Ferdinand’s anticipation, though, Hubert is entirely impassive, his body still. It seems like nothing phases him short of a fist to the face.

“Do you offer this sentimentality to all your prisoners?” he starts, dry and judgemental.

“If we do not have kindness to our fellow man, we have nothing at all--”

“Don’t pretend you’re so noble,” he interrupts. “I saw what you really are out there. The desert does strange things to a man, don’t it?”

Ferdinand frowns, pressing his lips together. “I will not let you inside my head, Vestra,” he warns. “Do not mistake my compassion for weakness.”

“In my eyes it is one and the same.”

“Then you are a fool.” He wraps his fingers around the bars, touching his forehead against the metal. They’re separated by maybe a foot and a half of space and a rusting iron lock, but it feels like they’re worlds apart. 

Hubert raises his hand, a dismissive wave of the wrist. He doesn’t seem to be taking it seriously, just lounging behind bars without a care in the world. “Look where your chivalry got you.”

“It put you in a cell instead of six feet beneath the ground. You would do well not to forget that.”

He doesn’t quite smile, Ferdinand wouldn’t call it that. But Hubert’s upper lip twitches in amusement, his eyes lighting up for a moment before falling back to their usual impassive slate. “And you call me foolish,” he muses. “Ironic.”

“Do you know what is ironic?” Ferdinand asks, crouching down to the outlaw’s level. “I have seen what you do to your victims, Vestra. You are a stone-cold killer who shoots unarmed men in the head. You leave nothing to chance. And you always finish the job.” He pulls a cigarette from his pocket, but he doesn’t light it, not yet. He looks to Hubert, sat across the floor of the cell, patiently watching and waiting for him to finish. Ferdinand puts the cigarette between his teeth, then removes it again and uses it to point at Hubert. “But you shot me in the chest, not the head. It was fifty-fifty, that is what Linhardt said. You left it down to chance. And by doing that, you let me live.”

Hubert frowns ever-so-slightly. “A poor decision on my behalf,” he says, but it sounds too nonchalant for Ferdinand to take his words to heart. 

“Why did you not kill me when you had the opportunity?” he asks.

“I could ask the same of you.”

Ferdinand stares into Hubert’s eyes. Hubert stares back. It’s a competition to see who will blink first, and neither of them are willing to back down. 

Truth be told, Ferdinand doesn’t know why he didn’t put a bullet in Hubert’s head back at their camp. Something about the man makes him hesitate. Hubert deserves nothing more than to swing from the gallows, for the vultures and coyotes to pick his corpse clean. And yet here he is, alive and well.

“Drink?” Ferdinand asks. It’s his go-to answer to these kinds of questions.

“Please.”

He disappears back to his desk, fetching his flask from the drawer. He takes a good, long drink for himself, then passes the vessel between the bars to the man inside. Hubert raises the flask to his face, smelling the liquor inside. A small sip confirms his suspicions, and he exhales in disgust. 

Hubert grimaces at the sharp stench of the liquor. “You have a problem.”

“It numbs the pain, for a while.”

The reason falls out all of a sudden, a declaration of weakness. Ferdinand curses himself. Perhaps the alcohol had loosened his tongue, made him susceptible to the outlaw’s provocation. He hadn’t admitted that to anyone -- not to Caspar, not to Dorothea, and certainly not to himself. 

Hubert shakes his head as he hands the flask back through the bars. “No matter how much it makes the pain go away, whiskey don’t heal wounds.”

“It does not.” Ferdinand swills the dregs around the bottom of the flask. Barely a mouthful left. At odds to what he’d just said, he goes to finish the last of his drink, but the feeling of those eyes on him makes him pause for thought. He lowers the flask. “Do not judge me, Vestra. It hurts no-one but myself.”

“Hm,” Hubert acknowledges, but he doesn’t sound convinced. “Perhaps you should ask that girl of yours, see what she thinks.”

“I do not wish to talk about her. Especially not with you.”

“Of course.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Hubert’s stare is fixed out to the desert beyond, Ferdinand’s at the bottom of his hip flask. He raises it to his lips, just as an exercise in willpower, then replaces the cap. 

“Where is Edelgard going now?” he asks, standing back to his full height. “Who is next on your hit list?”

Hubert shakes his head, almost in disappointment. “I won’t tell you where she is. I’d never betray her, not even with my dying breath. You should know that, sheriff.”

Ferdinand starts to pace again, trying to keep his thoughts in line. “If I do not find Edelgard, someone else will. There is a reward of five thousand dollars on her head. You know I am a man of honour, Vestra, but the bounty hunters and vagabonds that prowl the wastes? They will do anything to get their money, no matter what condition she is in.”

“‘Wanted dead or alive’,” Hubert quotes. “I am familiar with the concept.”

“‘Dead or alive’ means the law does not care what they do to her,” Ferdinand explains. “Death is the least of her worries.”

He watches as the colour drains from Hubert’s face, as his eyes widen and his hands clench into fists. The pieces slowly fall into place. Ferdinand just stands back and watches, letting the ‘what ifs’ fly through Hubert’s head until it drives him mad.

They both sit in silence, waiting for the other to break first.

“We are going straight for the head of the corruption,” Hubert admits after a few minutes of silent contemplation. “A man that goes by many names. He’s been in and out of San Adrestia over the years, but we’re always a step behind him. He is spreading his influence with dirty money, from here through the Faerghus Territories, reaching as far as New Leicester. No town in the state is spared.”

Ferdinand crouches down to his level again. “Is there any other way to stop this man? Any way that does not involve killing?”

“He has a small army of hired guns to protect him,” Hubert explains. The tangled fringe of dark hair hides one of his eyes, but the other is bright as the morning star. “He has proven time and time again that he will stop at nothing until Lady Edelgard is dead and the last of her line extinguished. I cannot allow that. One way or another, he'll face justice for what he's done.”

“As will you,” Ferdinand replies. Hubert goes to speak, but he’s cut off. “Who is this man, and where is he based?”

“Like I said, he goes by many names. Arundel is one of his aliases, Thales, Volkhard, a handful of others. He is the snake at the centre of all this, but unless we cut off his head at the source, he and all those that slither in the dark will reappear again under a new name and a new guise, and we will be no closer to ending this than before.”

“‘Those that slither in the dark’,” Ferdinand quotes. “Is that really what you call them?”

He gets that quiet _heh_ from Hubert, an almost-laugh. “It’s as good a name as any.”

“Where will I find them?” 

“The fort just outta town,” he explains. “They call it 'Merceus'. Right near where we were camped. We were planning to strike, before you came a-charging in. It’s nigh as dammit impenetrable, though. You’d never take it, not unless you knew how.”

Ferdinand considers the outlaw’s words. “You were planning on storming a civil war fort. Alone.”

“With Lady Edelgard at my side, of course--”

“You would be dead within five minutes.”

“I would lay down my life for her.” 

He stifles the derision inside him, but his mouth smiles before he can stop it. The alcohol hits all of a sudden, and he reaches out to steady himself. “I knew you were devoted, Vestra, but you never struck me as an idiot.”

“You’re drunk, Ferdinand.”

“I am not,” he says, but doubt lingers in his mind. He would never be drunk on duty. Surely not.

Would he?

He walks back to his desk, slamming the drawer a little too hard as he hides the hip flask away. “Would a drunkard do this?” he asks, pulling off his coat, then unbuttoning the waistcoat and shirt beneath until his chest is exposed, showing off the scar like a badge of honour. It’s not a large mark, no, but it’s pitted and ugly and it sits just above his heart. 

He approaches Hubert with a ferocity so unlike himself, pressing his body into the bars to the cell. Like this they’re close enough to touch. 

All he needs to do is reach out a hand.

“Touch it.”

Hubert looks him up and down, taking in not just the scar but everything else. “I know what a scar feels like--”

“Touch it, Vestra. You feel that scar and think upon your sins.”

Cold fingers reach out, running across Ferdinand’s pectoral muscle. Hubert’s fingertips rest on the knot of scar tissue, obviously darker than the skin surrounding it. He stays there for a little too long, just staring. But Ferdinand isn’t satisfied; he reaches into the cell, grabbing Hubert’s wrist and forcing him closer so his palm is up against Ferdinand’s chest. The outlaw’s fingernails are sharp as they dig into the skin below.

“I did that,” he murmurs.

“You did.” Ferdinand pulls away, buttoning his shirt back up as he lists his injuries. “Two broken ribs,” he explains. “A shattered shoulder bone and a punctured lung. I could barely move that arm for a month. I could not breathe right for six. I can still feel the bits of the bullet Linhardt had to leave in there.” He takes another step back, grateful for the whiskey-induced courage. “And as if that was not enough, you slaughtered my family and burnt my home to ash. You took everything from me. And still I show you mercy.” He reaches for the revolver strapped to his hip, but he doesn’t draw, not yet. Perhaps he is a little tipsy, after all. “Give me a reason not to drag you out the back of this prison and put a bullet in you,” he hisses. “Just one good reason, Vestra. Can you do that?”

Hubert says nothing. He has nothing to defend himself with. 

The damning silence says more than any words.

Ferdinand opens his mouth to speak, but the low, guttural growl of an empty stomach fills the cell. It takes them both aback, and Ferdinand frowns at the sound.

His hand eases from his six-shooter. “So you are indeed human, after all.”

Hubert hangs his head. He grunts in acknowledgement, but he doesn’t grace Ferdinand with a reply. Uncomfortable, he shifts against the wooden floor, crossing his hands across his chest. 

He must be starving by now.

“When did you last eat?” Ferdinand asks, the question stretching out for far too long. He pulls his coat back on as he waits for an answer, that golden star taking pride of place on his chest. “Do not make me repeat myself, Vestra.”

“Yesterday evening.”

“You should have said,” he chides. “I do not have much, but I am sure I can spare a little.”

“I don’t need--”

“Tea or coffee?”

A reluctant sigh. “Coffee. Please.”

“Very well.”

Ferdinand leaves the cells, heading upstairs to his living quarters. He makes a scant meal with what few perishables he has -- coarse bread, hard cheese in wax paper, a pan of water bubbling on the stove for the two dented tin mugs on the shelf. Boiling water is poured into one mug for tea, into the other for coffee. He stares at his medicinal supplies as well, a couple of bottles and bandages he’s certain he won’t miss.

Hubert is waiting silently for him when he returns, still sat in the same spot as before. He stares at the plate of food in suspicion, eyes narrowed and lip curled in contempt.

“It is not poisoned,” Ferdinand tries, and he gets that cold half-smile again. “Do not take advantage of my goodwill,” he warns, fishing the keys to the cell from his pocket and placing it in the lock. He opens the cell just enough for him to slip inside. 

If Hubert was going to make his escape, it would be now. But the outlaw still doesn’t move as Ferdinand places the plate and mug down next to him, barely enough space for it to fit between his legs and the wall. The cell stinks of urine and rotting wood, the air tasting foul on his tongue.

Hubert’s first move is to reach for the coffee. Up close like this Ferdinand can see the damage done to his wrists; not just the sunburn but the chafing where the handcuffs had been, patches of broken skin scrubbed raw from the rope. The scrapes are no longer bleeding, but the exposed flesh beneath is red and inflamed.

“Show me your hands,” he says quietly, and Hubert stretches out his arms as if waiting for the cuffs again. But his eyes widen as Ferdinand instead brings out cold water and rubbing alcohol. Ferdinand works methodically, rinsing out an old rag with water, then the alcohol. He passes the cloth over to Hubert, who lets out a sharp hiss as surgical spirit meets open sores.

He cleans himself up in silence. 

“Talk,” Ferdinand commands, and Hubert’s reply comes easily.

“Everything I have done, I did in the service of Lady Edelgard. What I do, what I say, how I act, it is all in defence of her. I would gladly die a thousand times over, if she asked that of me. I hope you understand this, sheriff.”

The words hang over them both for a moment, but Ferdinand doesn’t let it rest for long. 

“That is why you let yourself be taken,” he finishes, reaching for his tea and taking a sip. He helps to dress Hubert’s left wrist, wiping the last of the dirt from his wounds and binding the outlaw’s hands with bandages instead of handcuffs. “I could only capture one of you. And you put yourself through this so that she could go free.”

“It is my duty,” comes the excuse, as if that explains everything. “Besides, I have endured far worse in her service.”

“And here I thought you were just pleased to see me again.”

“Perhaps I was.”

It catches Ferdinand by surprise, and he snaps his hands away from Hubert as if he’d been burnt. Even sat on the floor of a jail cell, Hubert has the self-satisfied look of a man that’s completely in control. It’s like he’s getting exactly what he wants. 

His voice is a whisper. “Maybe I’ll make it up to you sometime, hm?”

Ferdinand frowns at the suggestion behind the words. “I hope that is not a threat, Vestra.”

“Not in the slightest, sheriff.” The words are nothing if not respectful, but Hubert isn’t looking at Ferdinand’s eyes anymore. Slowly, he starts to creep forward, moving up into Ferdinand’s space like a mountain lion on the hunt. 

“Get away from me,” Ferdinand warns. He recoils backwards, hand going back to his six-shooter. If Hubert had a plan of escape, this was surely part of it. “I am not playing games with you.”

“Of course.”

The silence is almost painful.

“Tell me why,” Ferdinand whispers eventually. Hubert looks up, but it isn’t the question he wants to hear. “Tell me why you killed my father.”

Hubert presses his lips together as he thinks, trying to come up with an acceptable answer. The defences around him are up again, high and impenetrable. He slumps back against the wall. 

“Revenge,” he says eventually, “that was much of it. But we can’t allow these men to hurt anyone else. No ordinary man should suffer this way. And that is why I won’t rest until every one of them is dead, and neither will Lady Edelgard.”

“As I thought,” Ferdinand replies. It’s almost accepting defeat. “I cannot stop you. I know this now.”

“Then send me to the gallows and hang me for murder.”

“I should,” he says, looking up into those pale green eyes. “I should have you put to death. But I will not.”

Confusion flickers across Hubert’s face, despite all he tries to hide it. “Ferdinand--”

“Tell me what I must do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will not stop,” Ferdinand explains, “so I will come with you and put an end to all this myself. If we are to do this, we do it on my terms. No mindless killing. We use only as much force as is absolutely necessary. You answer to me, now, you and Edelgard both.”

“And when we are finished?”

“Then I will give you a day’s grace,” he whispers, “and _then_ you will be hanged for murder.”

Hubert is shocked into silence. He takes a moment to process it, narrowing his eyes, but Ferdinand isn’t finished.

“I need to find Edelgard. Do you know where she will be?”

A shaky nod of the head. “Of course. She is dearer and closer to me than even that whore is to you.”

“Dorothea is not a prostitute,” he spits back. He ignores Hubert’s sceptical expression and raised eyebrow. “You know nothing about us.”

“I understand more than you know.”

Ferdinand steps back, changing the subject before he lets his anger get the better of him. “How many men will we need?” he asks. There’s just enough force in his voice to let the outlaw know that he’s no longer playing games. Hubert is talking to Sheriff von Aegir, now, and he can’t afford to push back.

“Just myself and Lady Edelgard--”

“How many, Vestra?”

Hubert sighs, running a hand over his hair. He looks tired all of a sudden, his already gaunt face marred with cuts and bruises and a painful-looking sunburn. “Someone that knows explosives. Someone that knows the land. A sniper, if you got one. And any fighters willing to follow you to certain death.”

“Are you expecting losses?”

“Perhaps,” he admits. “Arundel will have a great many men fighting at his side. Casualties are inevitable.”

“Then a doctor, too,” Ferdinand decides. “No meaningless deaths. Not on my watch.”

“Your optimism is admirable, if disgustingly naive.”

“Hm. Another thing for us to disagree on, it seems.” He gets to his feet, then hooks his thumbs back into his belt. “I have some business to attend to, and a posse to round up. We ride tomorrow at sunrise.”

For a moment he hesitates, frowning at Hubert as if that’ll make the twisted snakes nest of feelings inside him go away. He doesn’t even know _what_ he’s feeling, let alone how to stop it. But he does know the cells suddenly become very cold as the evening falls, and the sun would set before he was done for the night. 

He pulls his overcoat off and drops it at Hubert’s feet. 

“Sheriff?”

“For warmth. It gets real cold in here.” He doesn’t stop for thanks, instead pulling the keys from his belt again. “I will be back late this evening. You should get some rest, Hubert. We have a long day tomorrow.”

Ferdinand locks the cell behind him, and he doesn’t look back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight homophobic nonsense about 80% of the way down. Not awful, but... it's there.

It was a miracle what a few hours’ rest and a good meal could do for a man.

Hubert was already awake when Ferdinand came for him that morning, accepting a freshly-brewed cup of coffee without so much as a snide remark. They’d eaten a meagre breakfast in silence together, staring at the other for just long enough to make eye contact before dropping the link again. 

There was a little more colour to the outlaw’s face, a little brighter behind the eyes. If he had slept at all, Ferdinand hadn’t seen it, but even that short time had helped his recovery.

It was only when Ferdinand’s horse was saddled and ready to go that he’d finally let Hubert out of the cell, keeping a keen eye on him the whole time. Of course, Hubert wouldn’t give up Edelgard’s location, but he’d agreed to show them the way to her camp, provided a certain deal of amnesty.

They’d left just after sunrise, Ferdinand meeting with his three closest allies under the shadow of the church. Dorothea had ridden out after him not half an hour later, catching up in a flurry of silken skirts and determination, and insisting that she came along with them. For all her inexperience with guns and ammunition, she had refused to turn back, no matter how much Ferdinand had begged her to return to San Adrestia. 

After an hour or so the posse had stopped by the river to water their horses and share a cigarette, and Petra had met them there, brown eyes squinting against the sun. She hadn’t taken kindly to the black-clad stranger with his cold eyes and disparaging remarks, but she had greeted her friends with smiles and warm embraces. And since being introduced to Dorothea, the two couldn’t stop talking, providing enthusiastic background chatter as the seven of them made their way across the barrens.

Ferdinand’s horse struggles under the extra weight, managing no more than twenty minutes at the trot before dropping back to a walk again. It had considerably lengthened their journey, the morning sun beating at their backs as they rode. 

Hubert sits in front of him on the saddle, holding onto the horse’s mane and shifting uncomfortably every time the gait changes from walk to trot. But despite his height, Hubert weighs next to nothing, lean and scrawny beneath the black attire. Ferdinand can feel his ribs beneath the shirt each time his arms brush up against Hubert’s chest, and his legs tense and relax in time with the horse’s walk, shifting against Ferdinand’s crotch. 

He had protested to the indignity of the travel, but it wasn’t like he could do much about it. His hands had been cuffed again, and the others hung back a few yards behind them, under orders to shoot the outlaw if he so much as looked at them funny. 

Aside from the occasional terse exchange of words, Hubert and Ferdinand barely talk. A dry comment here, a polite question there.

Thirty minutes pass. An hour.

The horses move out towards the highlands, vast outcrops of rock populated by bandits and thieves. The dusty ground is littered with scrubby vegetation, but it gets sparser as they ascend. Slowly the call of cicadas falls away, leaving them to move along in eerie silence as Hubert directs them up through the hills.

A makeshift set of gallows has been set up at the edge of the trail. A single corpse swings from the noose above, skin turned to leather in the sun. Empty eye sockets stare out at nothing, vultures skirmishing for scraps below.

“Hold up, now,” Hubert says as they pass. “Let me down. We go the rest of the way on foot.”

He dismounts as gracefully as he can with his hands bound, and Ferdinand carefully follows after him. There’s a good chance it was a trap -- there always was, with Hubert -- but Ferdinand tests the ground, checking the terrain around them. He keeps his reins in his left hand, the right pulling the six-shooter from his holster and pressing it into the dip between Hubert’s shoulder blades, just in case.

“No sudden moves,” he warns, and Hubert glances over his shoulder to the gun at his back. 

“You think so little of me?”

“I am not taking any chances. I hope you understand.”

“Follow me, then,” he says. He looks over the posse in disdain, but veers off the path past the gallows, slowly making his way through the highlands. Off the trail, the land is stony and harder to pass, and more than once Ferdinand has to take his horse by the halter and lead her forward by the nose. They follow a sheer face of rock for a while, twisting and turning over the uneven ground.

“Are we a-nearly there yet?” Caspar whines from the back, and Hubert sends a withering glance his way. 

“Patience, Caspar.” Hubert reaches out a hand to the sheer rock face at his side. “We’re close. Real close.”

Sure enough, a hundred yards ahead the rock face falls away, exposing a small campsite maybe twenty feet wide. A petite figure stands in front of her tent, hands on her hips. 

“You first, then.” Ferdinand presses his revolver just a little harder into Hubert’s back, forcing him forward. He calls over his shoulder to the others. “The rest of you are to stay here. Should the worst happen, ride back to San Adrestia and bring the force of the law down upon this man.”

A loud voice echoes back at him, full of certainty despite her youth. “Who comes there?”

He pushes his chest forward, raising his chin as he speaks. “I am the sheriff of San Adrestia--”

“Lady Edelgard.” Hubert cuts him off. “I’m here.”

"Come forth, Hubert. Show me you are unharmed."

The details come into focus as they approach. It’s a neatly-organised camp tucked away from the rest of the world, the remnants of a fire smothered in the dirt. Bags and cases litter the ground, holding everything from food and ammunition to clean clothes and personal trinkets, two lives packed into whatever their horses could carry. A chessboard is set out on the ground by the extinguished fire pit. One white pawn has been moved forward, but that is the only play made so far, the rest of the game still waiting on its opponent.

The two horses are tied to a post, one missing its rider. 

Edelgard stands in the centre of her camp, dressed in riding attire. Her hair is braided tightly against her head. A bright red serape is draped over her shoulders, fluttering slightly in the wind. Ferdinand knows that if she were to turn around he’d be met with the Crest of Flames, a relic bestowed upon her on that fateful night. Her face is neutral and composed, tracking the small posse as they trudge in.

An eagle flies high in the sky overhead.

Edelgard’s tomahawk hangs from her belt, but there’s an old-fashioned pistol in her right hand, inlaid with ivory and gold. The sight of it makes Ferdinand tighten his grip on his own weapon, clutching so tightly his knuckles hurt and his hands shake.

“Hubert,” she says quietly. “Thank the Lord.”

Ferdinand lets go of the reins, instead reaching for the keys around his belt and unlocking the handcuffs around Hubert’s wrists. He stares at the other man, then gestures sharply with his head.

“Go on,” he says quietly. 

Hubert is at Edelgard’s side in an instant, grasping her small hands in his and pressing them up against his lips. He speaks too quietly for Ferdinand to hear, but the two outlaws exchange a flurry of words, desperate and thankful for the other’s presence.

Slow, heavy footsteps approach from behind as Caspar steps up to Ferdinand’s side. The heartfelt reunion is interrupted by the sound of a shotgun being cocked, then a quiet whistle for emphasis. 

“We outnumber you six to two,” Ferdinand warns. “Please do not give Caspar an excuse to start a fight.”

Edelgard nods, a shallow jerk of the head. Her eyes never leave the newcomers. 

“Did you come to arrest me?” she asks, cautious. 

“Not at all.”

“Then tell me why you’re here.” She’s all business, scrutinising him for any hidden agenda. But Ferdinand wears his heart on his sleeve, he always has, and she finds nothing to be suspicious of.

“I am looking to make you an offer,” he says, but he finds himself trailing off, distracted. His eyes are drawn to Hubert as the outlaw collects his things. He pulls a thick belt of knives around his waist, then a long coat over his back. A rifle over his shoulder, a wide-brimmed hat to hide his eyes, and it’s like he’d never been gone.

He pulls a knife from the bandolier and presses his finger into the end of the blade, watching as a thin bead of red appears at his fingertip. He tosses the knife from hand to hand, judging its weight as if about to throw. But he tucks it back into his belt, satisfied, before turning back to the others.

“May I have a moment?” he asks Ferdinand, but his attention is focussed only on Edelgard. He reaches up to rest a hand upon her shoulder, then drags his eyes from her face to stare up at Ferdinand instead. 

“Do not try me, Hubert--”

“Please,” he says.

“Just a moment,” Ferdinand says, “nothing more.”

He looks away for a moment, averting his eyes. But in his peripheral vision he watches them embrace, as close as lovers, or perhaps brother and sister, but in truth neither of those things. What they were to each other was a mystery he fears he’ll never figure out, and he secretly doubts they know themselves.

He clears his throat to give them a second of warning, then looks back up to meet them. They stand apart as if they were never close, neither able to look at their companion for fear they’ll fall right into the other’s arms again.

“I know where you are headed,” Ferdinand announces, and Edelgard looks up at him in suspicion. “It would be folly to try storming that fort alone. They would shoot you down before you go close.”

“You can’t stop us,” she replies with a shake of her head. “What I gotta do has already been set in motion. I’ll take down those men if it’s the last thing I do.” 

“I know this. That is why you need us.”

She frowns, looking to Ferdinand, then Caspar. “Ferdinand von Aegir. And that’d be Bergliez’s youngest boy, I reckon. I do believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting the both of you before."

Caspar bristles at Ferdinand’s side. He goes to step forward, but Ferdinand places his hand in front of the kid’s chest, holding him back.

“That’s enough, Caspar,” he warns. “Miss Hresvelg, I do believe I can be of assistance. There is a hunting lodge on the far edge of what used to be my father’s land. There are rooms for you to sleep in, places to keep your supplies, to feed and water your horses. You use it as your base of operations, and I lend you the strength of four fighters and a doctor, all good and true.”

Edelgard frowns. The memory of their last bargain still echoes in both their minds.

“It sure sounds too good to be true. What do you want in return?”

“You are to put an end to all this. One last strike against those who slither in the dark, and then you are both to leave my lands and never return. Do you agree to these terms, Miss Hresvelg?”

Hubert scowls. “Thought you said you were gonna send me to the gallows.”

Ferdinand ignores him.

“That is quite the demand, sheriff,” Edelgard says, stepping forward to meet him. She’s almost a foot shorter than him, but there’s steel in her eyes, unflinching. And yet despite the hardness in her demeanour and voice there’s a gentle smile on her face. “I have only one amendment to your terms. If we are to be allies, then we must treat each other as such.” She offers her hand out to him. “You can call me Edelgard.”

He shakes her hand, nothing but chivalrous. Still, he can’t forget the bitter taste of ash in his mouth, the white gravestone in the cemetery that bears his father’s name. His smile is tight-lipped and polite, nothing more. “Ferdinand.”

The eight of them ride out together. Hubert and Edelgard first, up front where the others can see them. Then Ferdinand behind them, directing the group. Dorothea rides at his side, but her attention is divided between him and Petra, calling to the Brigid princess every few minutes. Caspar hangs towards the back so he can annoy Linhardt, who looks like he’s five minutes away from falling asleep in the saddle. And finally Bernadetta, trailing behind to round out the posse, a long-barrelled marksman’s rifle slung across her back.

The old hunting lodge is only a short ride away, and they cover the distance quickly. Once the horses are stabled and fed, the eight meet in the central room around the dining table. Edelgard places a hand-drawn map onto the table, the edges scuffed and torn, the corners creased. Whatever she and Hubert have been planning, they’ve been planning it for a long time.

“Arundel will be hiding out in the central part of the fort,” Edelgard starts. “Heavily-defended, maybe sixty hired guns. There’s only one way in, and that’s through the main gates. It’s a choke point, one we gotta navigate with care.”

“Ain’t that gonna be like shooting fish in a barrel?” Caspar asks, staring at the diagram. A faded blue bandana is tied around his forehead to keep his hair out of his face, and his arms are folded over his chest. He frowns like it’s the most complex thing in the world.

“Caspar,” Ferdinand warns, but Hubert nods his head.

“No, the boy is right. Say, kid, you’re our explosives ace, right?”

Caspar nods. “My pa deals in munitions, sir. I’ve been blowing shit up since I was old enough to light a match.”

“Then perhaps we’ll make an entrance of our own.”

They watch as Caspar realises what Hubert is asking, his eyes lighting up with glee when the penny finally drops.

“You mean--”

“For sure,” Edelgard replies with an underhand smile. “We strike under cover of darkness, pick them off before they can mobilise. We’ll certainly need a guide though, someone that knows the terrain like the back of their hand, someone that can navigate it in the dark. That’s Brigid land, right?”

All eyes turn to Petra. She nods, a little uncomfortable in the spotlight, but her voice is sure. “I am knowing the land. I can be guiding you there. I have no love for these men, men who drain the rivers and burn the land and kill for the sake of killing.”

“Petra is a fighter, too,” Ferdinand explains. “There is no finer warrior this side of Enbarr, of that you have my word.”

Caspar goes to protest, but Linhardt elbows him in the ribs and he falls silent. Petra, meanwhile, dips her head in embarrassment, but her words are full of gratitude.

“The sheriff -- Ferdinand -- he is being too kind. I still have much to learn.”

“I trust you, princess,” Edelgard says, speaking slowly and clearly. “I look forward to seeing you in action." She looks up to each of the other seven people around the table, making sure to catch the eyes of each and every one. “Do we have a sniper?” she asks, and Bernadetta winces at the question. She clutches her rifle tight and nods, but she doesn’t dare to speak.

“Bernadetta will be our sharpshooter,” Ferdinand explains, and she shirks back, fearful of the sudden attention.

"She don't seem like a marksman,” Hubert says dryly. “Does she even know one end of a weapon from the other?”

“I sure do!” she whines. “And if you're talking to me, Hubert, you'd best talk to my face.”

“You know how to use that rifle of yours?” He leans over the table, towering over Bernadetta’s slight form. “You gotta reload between shots, you know. Squeeze the trigger, don’t be jerking it. Line up the sights and fire on the exhale--”

Bernadetta cocks the rifle in a quick, rehearsed motion. She spins on her heel and brings the gun up to her shoulder, squinting down the sights before pulling the trigger. 

The shot shakes the walls around them.

Hubert steps back, mouth slightly open, eyes wide in shock.

The deer’s head mounted above the fireplace stares out as if in surprise. One glass eye stares down at them, accusing. The other has shattered into a million pieces, a neat bullet hole right where its eye once was.

Bernadetta places her rifle back down on the table. “I’m only gonna be here as a last resort,” she says, much more confident than before. “I’m not killing anyone unless I absolutely gotta. I mean-- unless you don’t-- you want--”

Ferdinand lies a hand on her shoulder. “I will not expect you to do anything you are not comfortable with, Bernadetta. There is only one man that needs to die tomorrow.”

She nods silently. Her bottom lip trembles from her outburst, but she doesn’t break down. She doesn't do that, not anymore.

“I will vouch for Dorothea’s hand-to-hand prowess,” Ferdinand continues. “Do not be distracted by her beauty or fine voice. She is a fierce combatant, and I would never wish to come up against her in anger.”

Dorothea giggles, but it’s hiding the seriousness beneath. She introduces herself to those that don’t know her yet, displaying her usual dazzling smile and performer’s grace. The smile falters ever so slightly as she locks eyes with Ferdinand, their nighttime encounter not yet forgotten. Instead, Ferdinand clears his throat, introducing the final member of their party.

“As for Linhardt, he is a fine doctor. He must know some sort of magic to pull off the saves he does. I owe him my life.”

“Oh, don’t be expecting me to follow you into battle,” Linhardt says with a half-hearted wave of his hand. “I detest violence and I would only be a liability out there. But I’ll pull the bullets outta y’all when you’re done. Just try not to bleed too much and we’ll be fine and dandy.”

They discuss their plan for a little longer, rehearsing it until even Caspar can recite every step. 

“Ready?” Edelgard asks, and she’s met with a chorus of nods. “Good. You know your duties for tomorrow. Unless anyone else wants to add anything, I reckon now’s a good time to get some rest.”

“Finally,” Linhardt says, already traipsing over to the nearest couch. “Wake me if there’s an emergency. Or don’t. I don’t much care either way.”

The eight go their separate ways, each with their own tasks to attend to. 

Bernadetta dismantles and reassembles her rifle, making sure everything is in working order. Face scrunched in concentration, she tweaks the sights by a hair’s breadth before checking the alignment again. The couch in front of the fire is home to Dorothea and Petra, chatting an awful lot about very little. It provides a quiet background sound for the others above the burble of the river, until Petra offers to teach Dorothea a move or two, and then the talking descends into a very different kind of noise.

Ferdinand organises supplies for the morning, raiding the house for whatever ammunition he can get his hands on. Hubert sits on the front porch and sharpens his knives one at a time, watching the rest of them scurry by. Every few minutes Caspar will call out a question -- density, volume, mass, force -- then jot down Linhardt’s unenthusiastic answers on a piece of paper until he’s got the quantity of explosives they’ll need. 

And Edelgard watches over them all from the upstairs balcony, organising her troops.

Dinner is shared in relative silence. Dorothea conjures up the best meal she can make from canned foods that likely date to before the war. It doesn’t taste great, but it’s warm and it’s solid, and it seems to do them all the world of good. They play cards around the table, sharing an old bottle of whiskey between them and telling stories to pass the afternoon.

Ferdinand washes in the river behind the lodge as the sun sets. The water is cold against his lower half, the temperature starting to drop as night draws in. He slowly rinses out his hair, slaking the dust and dirt and sweat from his body. The summer has brought a healthy, freckled tan to much of his skin, a few pale areas remaining where the sun never reached. He’s still clothed from the waist down but his torso is exposed to the last of the sun’s light, entry and exit wounds still visible on the left side of his chest.

The feeling of eyes on his back makes him look up. There, watching from the lodge; a tall man dressed in a black suit, his expression inscrutable, his gaze unyielding. It was only to be expected, but Ferdinand quickly wrings out his hair and pulls his outer clothes back on, all-too aware of Hubert’s stare as he walks up the steps to the lodge.

They stare at each other as they pass. A tight knot of what had to be resentment sticks in Ferdinand’s throat, impossible to budge. He brushes past the outlaw without a word, disappearing up to one of the bedrooms to change.

He finds Hubert again later that night in the main room, staring past the door into Edelgard’s room. He’s sat back on the dining table to keep a watchful eye on the woman in his charge. Her door is slightly ajar, and a sliver of moonlight from her window stretches across the room, just enough to illuminate the corridor.

Her hair is loosely plaited and spilling out onto the pillow around her. Her eyes are closed, her breathing deep and even. Ferdinand clears his throat to announce his presence, but Hubert’s already clocked on.

“You don’t have to announce yourself, Ferdinand.”

“I made coffee,” he says, offering out a mug. Hubert takes it with a nod of the head in thanks, but his eyes never leave Edelgard’s room. They stand in silence for a minute, until Hubert finally takes a sip; he grimaces at the taste, unimpressed.

“That’s the worst goddamn coffee I’ve ever had,” he says, but his top lip twitches into a smile. “It’s appreciated, though.”

“Do you ever sleep?” Ferdinand asks, looking the outlaw up and down. The bruising around his face is going down, the sunburn fading. With his coat around him and the belt of knives back around his hips, he looks far more like the shadow of a man that Ferdinand remembers, the harbinger of death in the night.

Hubert shakes his head. Still he can’t bear to draw his eyes away from Edelgard’s sleeping form. His hands tighten around his coffee. “Not nearly as much as I should.”

Ferdinand comes to stand at his side, then pushes the main door shut with his hip. “Perhaps you should get some rest, Hubert. I cannot have you making a mistake tomorrow because you are too tired to function.”

“I could say the same to you,” comes the reply. “Don’t you worry about me, now. I’ll be alright.”

“Sure you will.” Ferdinand places the tea down on the table, then pulls the hip flask from the pocket of his overcoat, drumming his fingers against the steel. “But it is not you that I am concerned about.”

Hubert glances back at the door as if he could look through to Edelgard’s room. “I swore to protect her until my dying breath,” he explains. “I intend to honour that promise.”

“She is very beautiful, you know--”

“It is my duty, nothing more. Do not presume it is anything else.” His reply comes quick-fire, unleashed without a moment’s warning. He folds his arms, retreating back into the shadows. Any emotion is kept far from his voice, locked up where nobody can find it. “Besides,” he continues, “she has made her feelings very clear. She has no interest in me, of that I am certain. If I want for affection, I must look elsewhere.”

Ferdinand looks down the corridor to the front of the lodge, to where Dorothea and Petra are sharing the last of that bottle between them, both deep in conversation. There’s a smile on Dorothea’s face, the sort of smile that he hasn’t seen on her in a very long time. Neither of the women can look away from each other. As Ferdinand watches, Dorothea pulls a handkerchief from the folds of her dress, tucking it into the front of Petra’s shirt.

 _For luck,_ he can imagine her saying. 

He knows what comes after that.

Ferdinand averts his eyes. He uncaps his flask, taking a mouthful of the cheap whiskey inside.

“I understand,” he says eventually. “More than you know.”

“There is _one_ thing we agree on, it seems.” Hubert is watching them too, but he’s quiet, detached. He smiles slightly, but there’s a warmth in there that Ferdinand has never seen before. “Perhaps we are more alike than we thought, you and I.”

Ferdinand returns the smile. He raises his flask to Hubert’s mug, pouring a hearty measure of whiskey into the outlaw’s coffee, then into his own mug of tea. They touch drinks, then each drink until their cups are empty and cold in their hands. 

They say nothing for a while, stood uneasily in each other’s presence. Ferdinand sits down on the table next to Hubert, just watching. Hubert is slouched with his back against the wall and his boots up on the table, observing Ferdinand like a poker player trying to unnerve his opponent. It’s a game of strategy, each analysing the other for weakness.

Hubert makes the first move. 

He gets down from the table and steps into the light again, moving close into Ferdinand’s space. Once again they’re close enough to touch, close enough that should Hubert decide to make a move, Ferdinand wouldn’t have enough time to counteract him.

Sure enough, one of Hubert's hands goes on the table, right next to Ferdinand's. The other runs down the side of Ferdinand's face, settling beneath his chin. Hubert tilts Ferdinand's face up towards him, now less than a foot away from each other.

Eyes lock. Hands meet. And Hubert leans in with half-closed eyes and parted lips--

Ferdinand pulls away, dropping down from the table and pushing past him. He tries to ignore the anger rising inside him, the fear, the disgust. His heart pounds in his chest, suddenly set aflutter. He doesn't know what he's feeling. He doesn't know what he's _supposed_ to feel, a million emotions all vying for dominance inside him.

“No,” he says quietly. He can hear his own heartbeat rushing in his ears, feel the aching in his chest. “No,” he says again. “Absolutely not.”

Hubert withdraws, still not looking away from him. “You have my apologies.”

“Is this some kind of twisted game, Vestra?”

“Not at all.”

“Then what in the world was _that_?” Ferdinand tightens his hands into fists, stifling the urge to pace back and forth. Confusion rears inside him, that writhing snake’s nest of feeling returning with a vengeance. Something slithers up his throat, hot and thick. “Was that what you wanted all along, Vestra? Do not tell me that you are a--”

He trails off.

"A queer?" Hubert spits. "A faggot? A filthy cocksucker? Oh, I've heard it many times before. There's nothing you can say to hurt me, sheriff--"

"I was going to say 'homosexual', but it seems you beat me to it."

Hubert falls silent. He licks his lips as he considers his next words, trying to assess the situation.

“I merely thought you were reciprocating my advances--” he tries, but again he's cut off.

“There is no feeling here,” Ferdinand replies. His head is full of cotton wool, clouding his thoughts and making it impossible to think straight. “This is not what man was made for. I am an honest child of God, noble and pure of heart--”

Hubert’s voice is dry and judgemental. “Are you implying I am not?”

“You are an ignoble creature of sex and violence.”

“You know nothing of what I am--”

But Ferdinand isn’t done. “Were I Edelgard, would you act in such a manner? Would you touch her, kiss her, all without her consent?”

Hubert shakes his head. “I wouldn’t treat any woman as such.”

“Then why am I any different?”

The damning words hang in the air over them both. Hubert clears his throat, a low growl in the back of his mouth. “I think you misunderstand me, sheriff. Beyond Lady Edelgard, there is no woman I wish to be with. No woman could ever hold a candle to her. So I look for my affection elsewhere. And it seems fate brought you back to me.” 

He steps in closer still, so close that Ferdinand can see every blemish and scar on his face, that his breath caresses Ferdinand’s skin as he talks.

The silence that follows makes Ferdinand uneasy. It leaves his thoughts to run wild and untamed, leaping to conclusions before he can stop it. Had he truly been reciprocating all along? Was that the real reason that Hubert was alive -- not because of careful planning and strategy but because of some filthy, traitorous sentiment he'd buried deep inside?

It can't be. Ferdinand prides himself on his nobility, his judgement. Hubert was simply trying to get inside his head, to throw him off, to play games with him like an alley cat toying with a mouse. That's all it was, a desperate ploy of a man trying to do anything to avoid his fate at the wrong end of the hangman's noose.

And it was working.

"I do not know what deviousness you are scheming, Vestra, but I want no part in it."

“Then allow me to explain myself,” Hubert whispers. The sound of it sends a shiver down Ferdinand’s spine. “I did things in Lady Edelgard’s service, things I am not proud of.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was young. We were alone. My family had cut me off. The money ran out, and I had to watch her waste away in front of me. You cannot imagine what that was like, sheriff, only able to stand aside and watch as the woman you love is consumed by hunger and cold.”

“Spit it out, Vestra.”

“I was desperate,” he explains, “and they were men with dollars to burn.”

Ferdinand takes another step back. But he’s backed into a corner, now, only able to press himself into the wooden walls to try and put as much distance between him and the outlaw as he can. “You think you can buy your way out of this by performing favours?” he asks, disgusted. “Is that truly all you think of me?”

He doesn’t know why his stomach turns at the thought, why Hubert holding him in such low esteem hurts in a way that he cannot put into words. 

“Not at all,” comes the response. “Again, you misunderstand me, Ferdinand. I only wish to thank you. For your compassion.”

He puts two and two together. The thought makes him sick to his stomach.

“I am no substitute for a woman who does not return your affection, Vestra.” He rises onto his tiptoes, lifting his chin until he’s got the extra inch over Hubert. “Do not take me for a fool.”

“I see,” Hubert replies. His eyes are narrowed into a frown, his lips pressed together in concentration. He leans in for one brief moment, before stepping back until they’re out of each other’s reach. “I appear to have misread the situation.”

“I believe you have.” 

Once again they fall into silence. Once again, neither can stop staring at the other.

The stillness of the night is broken only by the sound of Dorothea’s laughter from outside.

“I will forget about this,” Ferdinand announces. “We will not speak of it again come morning.”

His head hurts, and he pinches the bridge of his nose as if that'll make the headache go away, but it never does. Instead, he reaches for the only cure he knows, the familiar steel of his hip flask back in his hand before he can stop himself.

"Wait."

Hubert catches him just as he's bringing the flask to his lips, and Ferdinand stares at him in disgust. "Make it quick, Vestra."

“Do one thing for me,” comes a whisper. “Don’t tell Lady Edelgard. Please.”

Ferdinand looks him over. Uncertainty is a new look on Hubert, and it doesn’t suit him. “You never told her?”

“She don’t need to know. Not then, and not now. And she’d never look me in the eye again if she found out.”

“Are you ashamed?” Ferdinand asks, closing the distance between them again. 

“I--” Hubert starts, but he trails off. He glares at Ferdinand, his eyes pale in the moonlight. “No,” he decides. “Everything I do, I do for her. I did what I must to keep her safe and well. I regret none of my decisions, no matter what fate they bring upon me.”

There's a double meaning in there somewhere, Ferdinand is sure of it. Maybe it's Hubert's sordid past finally exposed to the world. Maybe it's a reference to the inevitability of his own death, whether it be in a hail of bullets tomorrow or swinging from a rope under the Garreg Mach church. Or maybe there's nothing at all, and Hubert is simply saying exactly as he means.

It's messing with Ferdinand's head, having to pick apart every interaction, every word they've ever exchanged. He feels scrambled up inside, a thousand conflicting scenarios running through his mind.

Ferdinand makes his decision. Two can play at that game.

He takes a step up towards Hubert, then another. He rises onto the balls of his feet so they're eye to eye, then reaches up to trace underneath Hubert's jaw as the outlaw had done to him just minutes prior. It's a lover's caress, unmistakably so.

He lowers his voice. "Perhaps you will come to regret this one."

Hubert's lips are icy cold against his own. They touch only for an instant, a moment of weakness in the dark. Despite the unease that prickles inside him, Ferdinand lets his teeth graze against Hubert's bottom lip, drawing down like a warning.

And then quick as a whip he's gone, pulling away until they're six feet apart, too far even to reach out and touch the other's hand. 

Hubert licks his lips again. He stares at Ferdinand's boots, slowly tracking up to his face. "Perhaps," he says quietly, and then he exhales sharply, suddenly, as if trying to rid the taste from his mouth. His body is wound tight as a wire, ready to snap at any second, and Ferdinand moves in for the kiss again.

But this time he tilts his head to the side, whispering into Hubert’s ear. He waits for a second, taking the time to breathe in, then out, watching as goosebumps appear on Hubert’s skin. He smells like poison and blood beneath the dusty leather, the stench of death never truly leaving him. 

“Your secret is safe with me,” Ferdinand murmurs. “I shall see you come first light tomorrow. We ride for death and ruin, and perhaps a light at the end of all this." He pauses but for a second, long enough to hear the sharp gasp as Hubert inhales, to feel the rush of cold air against his skin. "Goodnight, Vestra. It will be an honour to fight at your side.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter. Apologies in advance. Y'all best get comfy.

Eight riders move out in the early hours of the morning, cloaked under the velvet cover of darkness. 

The full moon hangs low in the sky to light their path. Petra rides at the head of the posse, leading them across the barrens to their target. Despite her expertise, the horses are still fearful in the dark, and occasionally one will let out a frightened whinny as they trek over the uneven ground.

Some of them talk to pass the time; Caspar rambles about nothing to anyone that’ll listen, while Edelgard and Hubert exchange a few words, too quiet for Ferdinand to make out. Bernadetta hums nervously to herself under her breath. But for the most part the eight of them are silent, simply trudging towards their destination.

Their eyes slowly adjust to the dark as they ride. 

Ferdinand had only had enough time to shave and get dressed before leaving that morning, throwing on the gear he’d carefully prepared the night before and heading out before the sun rose. Everything was in order, from the extra belts of ammunition strapped around his waist to the share of a hundred pounds of explosive he was keeping in his panniers. He’d come clean with the others before they left, bestowing them with parting words should this be the last time they got to speak outside of battle. There were no secrets between them, not anymore.

He hadn’t managed any more breakfast than a cup of tea to wake himself up. He wasn’t sure he could bear anything more substantial than that. And given the way his stomach turns at the sight of the fort on the horizon, lit up with braziers and gas lamps, he’s glad he didn’t.

'Merceus', Hubert had called it. In truth, Ferdinand can think of far worse names for a place as wretched as this.

“Caspar,” he says as they approach, and the kid spurs his horse on until they’re riding side to side. “You’re up.”

“We hit the south corner,” comes the instruction. “Spread the packages apart real far for maximum damage. When the fuse lights up, y’all got sixty seconds to get the hell out or you’ll end up coyote food.” Caspar pulls a measure of the explosives from the satchel slung over his shoulder, eight-ounce sticks bound in rough stacks of three. “Give me a hand with the dynamite and I’ll be a-sending you on your way. Just don’t be the dumb fuck that tries to light a smoke while we’re laying a hundred pounds of high explosive, yeah?”

“Barbaric,” Linhardt mutters from the back of the party, but he’s quick to follow Caspar down from his horse, scurrying along with their backs against the walls. Crucially, like this they’re just out of sight of the man in the watchtower, but Ferdinand still keeps an eye on the figure silhouetted against the stars, just in case. 

The ground is bone-dry beneath them, even the hardiest plants struggling to grow, and Petra picks up on it as she lays her share of the explosives. She mutters something in her native language as she works. It almost sounds like a prayer.

Caspar is the last man to leave the site, entwining every fuse together. He warns the others to stand back, pushing them further and further away with each word. Despite his hushed voice, his boyish enthusiasm is clear to see. He fishes a box of matches from his pocket, lighting the cigarette between his teeth. An inhale, an exhale, and then he touches the end of his cigarette to the fuse.

Immediately the fuse bursts into life, a quiet hiss splitting the morning air as the fire takes light. It travels fast, shedding iron filings and sparks as it goes.

“I do believe that’s sixty seconds,” Caspar says, rushing back towards them. “The show’s about to begin.”

Ferdinand sets his pocket watch going. They have less than a minute.

Anticipation writhes inside him, hot and frantic. He watches as the seconds pass, trying to prepare himself for the conflict to come. His hand rests above his holster as it has so often these last few days. But this time, there’s no room for error.

Edelgard re-briefs the teams for the final time. One by one they mount their horses until they’re all back in the saddle, watching the tiny spark as it travels over the ground to the great walls in front of them. Bernadetta clutches her rifle like a child hangs onto a favourite stuffed toy. Dorothea and Petra flank her on either side, the support to establish her in the watchtower. She knows her orders: shoot to kill.

“That’s nearly time,” Caspar interrupts. Sure enough, the spark has split into eight different fuses, each travelling to a different part of the wall. The watch face reads forty-two seconds and counting. “Cover your eyes right about now, so y’all don’t lose your night vision when the flash goes off. And I’d open your mouth, if I were you.”

“What?” Dorothea asks, her pretty face pulled into a frown. “Why?”

“It’ll stop your ears from busting. Something about pressure, I don’t know. But unless you never want to hear that pretty voice sing again, I’d do that about now.”

Ferdinand takes one last glance at his companions before the explosion to come, looking over each one in turn. Linhardt at the far edge, unusually antsy. Bernadetta, talking to herself with her eyes screwed shut, teeth gritted as she braces herself for the worst. Petra, staring straight ahead with a hunter’s resolve. Caspar, finishing his cigarette and bouncing excitedly in his saddle. 

Dorothea needs no introduction; her face is determined, but no less beautiful than before. She readies a rifle with unrehearsed clumsiness, but she pulls the parts closed with a _snap._ Then, to his right, the two outlaws. Edelgard, first, the edges of her serape caught in the early-morning breeze, the Crest of Flames flickering like the fire that consumes her inside. And finally Hubert, the picture of composure, as still and cold as the metal blades strapped to his body. His eyes are fixed dead ahead. He’s a shadow dressed in black, invisible in the night.

He glances to Ferdinand as they wait for the last few seconds to pass. They share a look -- nothing more, nothing less -- and then together they close their eyes.

Fifty-seven seconds on the pocketwatch. The heartbeats tick away.

Fifty-eight.

Fifty-nine--

The explosion tears the night apart. 

Ferdinand feels it more than he hears it, the pressure slamming into his chest and making his heart skip a beat. His ears ring for a second, deafened by the sound. Beneath him, his horse is bucking and screaming, but Ferdinand hardly notices.

To his right, Edelgard reaches out her hand.

“Forward!” she calls, and Ferdinand yanks on the reins, spurring the horse into the jaws of death. Eight sets of hoofbeats thunder around him.

As they ride, each of them draws their weapon of choice, pulling a scarf up to hide their faces and protect them from the dust. It only takes them a few seconds for them to reach the breached walls, now lit up with fires and the panicked calls of men jolted suddenly from their beds. Ferdinand leans into his horse as it vaults a still-burning section of the wall.

The first gunshot fills the air, the heavy _crack_ of Caspar’s shotgun. One of the night watchmen falls, another dropping to the floor with a scream as Edelgard reaches to her side and slits his throat. 

A man stands out in front of them, revolver in hand. Ferdinand doesn’t think; he can’t afford to do that. He just aims and shoots and watches the body drop to the floor. Then another man, and another. The glint of a rifle in a second-storey window turns to shattered glass and a blood-curdling scream. One shot, two, and shadow flickering in a doorway falls still. 

Point. Shoot. 

That’s six shots.

_Click._

Ferdinand directs his horse back to Edelgard’s side, reloading as quickly as he can. “Cover!” he calls, and as if in reply a knife zips in front of his face, embedding itself in the forehead of a man rounding the corner to his exposed side. A gun goes off, then another, but he tunes it out, glancing over to Edelgard and picking off the mercenaries before they can mobilise.

Aim, fire. Aim, fire.

His heart races.

Behind him, Edelgard cries out as her horse bucks and she tumbles from the saddle. Hubert is down at her side in an instant, but his concern is ultimately unnecessary; she leaps back to her feet not a second later, throwing herself back into the fray. She roars as she almost takes a man’s head off with the blade of her axe. At her side, Hubert raises his rifle, picking off one man at a distance, then pivoting on his heel and slamming the butt of his rifle into the face of another. The mercenary screams, but his cry is silenced brutally and suddenly at the end of a blade. Caspar circles the duo to protect them, the powerful _crack_ of the shotgun putting a swift end to anyone that gets too close. He pulls his horse to a halt as the last man drops to the floor.

The courtyard falls quiet all of a sudden, the uneasy silence of the dead hanging in the air. The dusty ground is strewn with bodies, maybe fifteen in total. One of them stirs in Ferdinand’s peripheral vision, reaching for a discarded revolver. But Ferdinand is faster, pulling back the hammer and firing off a shot in one quick motion. 

The body twitches, then falls still.

“This is just a fraction of the hired guns Arundel has on his payroll,” Edelgard says, as if reading his mind. “If we want to find him, we’re gonna have to attack the officer’s quarters.”

“He will be in there?” Ferdinand asks. He scans the courtyard for any motion, still on high alert.

“I’m sure of it.”

Caspar’s voice, a heady mix of excitement and fear. “So we meeting up with Miss Dorothea and the princess?”

“As we discussed,” Hubert replies. He grabs the reins to that huge black horse, wrestling the animal over to a set of wrought iron railings and tying the halter tight against the post. Now the element of surprise is over, the horses will make them too big of a target, and Ferdinand and Caspar quickly dismount, following his lead. 

Ferdinand strokes down the old mare’s nose, trying to calm it down. But they can’t afford to stay in one place for long, and he knows it.

“They’ll be regrouping to protect Arundel,” Edelgard says quietly. “We can’t give them time to establish their defences. We gotta strike fast and hard before--”

“Friendly!” comes a shout, a voice that Ferdinand has never been so grateful to hear. Dorothea and Petra rush into the centre of the courtyard to regroup with them, neither of them harmed. But there’s no time for fond reunions. Both women wear an expression of panic, and Dorothea grabs Ferdinand’s hand as she passes, dragging him with her.

“We are being chased,” Petra calls. “We must be moving or else--”

“Get to cover!”

Gunshots. Lots of them.

Together Ferdinand and Dorothea charge for the nearest building. He shoots out the main window and they both dive inside, crouching down below the windowsill for safety. The others join them a second later, backs pressed against the wall.

The gunshots from outside stop. Even optimistic as he is, Ferdinand is sure it won’t be for long.

“This wasn’t part of the plan,” Hubert hisses, incensed. He pulls a knife from his bandolier and readies it to throw. His eyes are trained on the door to their left, unblinking.

“We’re trapped,” Dorothea says quietly. “And outgunned. I can hear them.”

She’s right. Ferdinand doesn’t know how many there are, but outside he can hear the footsteps, the breathing. A cough sounds from the other side of the window, the scuffle of boots against the dirt.

Surrounded on all sides. There’s no way out.

“Anyone got any bright ideas?” 

“Right ahead of ya, sir,” Caspar whispers, pulling a spare stick of explosives from his pocket. He grabs a knife from Hubert’s belt, trimming the fuse down to an inch and a half. “Got a light?”

Ferdinand reaches for his matches, but he holds his hands up, signalling for Caspar to wait.

“We should give them fair warning,” he shouts, loud enough that he’s sure the mercenaries around them can hear through the shattered window. “In case these men do not know that the man they work for is a murderer and a conspiracist. A man who spreads corruption and ruin, a man who set alight to a house full of innocent children. A man without kindness or decency. We should tell them that if they choose to leave and never look back, we will grant them amnesty. But should they defend him, we will not hesitate to gun them down where they stand.”

He holds fire for a second, then another. There’s no answering question, no exodus. Just the same hushed silence as before, the creak of leather gloves against their weapons.

They wait.

“I reckon they’ve had their warning,” Caspar says, antsy. 

Ferdinand hands him the match. “Go right ahead.”

Caspar strikes the match, watching as the little flame bursts into life. “Damn shame,” he adds, touching the fuse to the end of the match and watching the wire spark and hiss. “I was saving this one for a special occasion.”

“Go now, if you wish to live,” Edelgard calls. “Final warning--”

Caspar charges past her, lobbing the dynamite through the window with a shout of “Bombs away, fuckers!”

There’s a panicked scream, and then--

_Boom._

Somehow it’s louder than the first. The last of the window shatters, filling the room with a hail of glass. Ferdinand uses the dust and the chaos as cover as he picks any remaining mercenaries from the courtyard, searching every wall and window for hostiles. There’s a rifleman in an upstairs window; the plaster explodes an inch away from his head and he snaps back against the wall. He listens for the quiet _click_ as the sniper pulls back the hammer again, sending a shot of his own through the window before ducking back to safety. They exchange shots -- one, two, three -- and then there’s a cry of pain and the rifle falls from the window to the courtyard below. Around him, the others clear up the stragglers. Petra’s rifle fires, then Hubert’s, until they’re sure there’s no-one else around.

Ferdinand’s ears ring with the noise, even once the courtyard has fallen silent again. He gets to his feet slowly, still hugging the edge of the window just in case. “We ready to move out?” he asks, but a small voice calls from the back of the room. 

“Sir?”

His heart sinks. “Caspar?”

“Aw man,” comes the reply. Caspar holds his hand just above his hip, pressing down hard. He’s suddenly gone pale, his body trembling all over, and he staggers backwards as he goes into shock. He withdraws his hand and his breathing hitches, palm coming away slick with blood. “Oh, that sure ain’t good.”

He takes an unsteady step back and collapses to the floor.

“Get Linhardt!” Ferdinand shouts, rushing to Caspar’s side. He thinks back to his basic medical knowledge, grabbing Caspar by the hand and telling him to keep the pressure on. Someone rushes past them to track down the doctor, two others standing guard either side of them in case any of the remaining mercenaries try anything.

Caspar swears, whining behind gritted teeth. He kicks his legs against the floor, body starting to spasm in pain. He cries out as the initial shock wears off and the pain takes over. 

“We will get Linhardt,” Ferdinand says. “You just stay still, now--”

He’s cut off by a scream, coarse and shrill. 

“It hurts, sir-- it real _fucking hurts--_ ”

“I know,” he replies quietly, lifting Caspar’s hand up from the wound to catch a glimpse of the damage. It’s just as he’d feared: a neat bullet hole about half an inch in diameter, red and black and filled with blood. “I know it hurts, Caspar, just press down real hard and that should help stop the bleeding.”

Hubert crouches down at his side, unbuckling one of his belts and folding it in half, then into quarters.

“Open wide,” he says, and Caspar looks at him in confusion above the pain and fear. 

“The hell is that for--”

He’s cut off as Hubert shoves the leather into his mouth, right between his teeth. 

“So you have something to bite down on,” comes the explanation, calm and assured and not entirely without sarcasm. “Unless you _want_ to bite your tongue off?”

Caspar screams again behind the belt, teeth clenched firmly around the leather. His free hand slams into the ground over and over, trying to control the pain.

It isn’t working.

Finally, Linhardt arrives with Petra, the doctor scurrying in and immediately pushing the others aside. He pulls Caspar’s bloody shirt up, tearing the cloth away. 

“You took your _goddamn_ time,” Ferdinand says, but he’s quickly shut up.

“Hush,” Linhardt commands. “In my bag. I need the morphine and the ethanol -- eighty per cent, please. And I’m gonna need to cauterise the wound .”

“What is ‘to cauterise’ meaning?” Petra asks as she hands over his supplies. A thin hypodermic needle with a label in illegible handwriting, then a bottle of alcohol and a thick wad of bandage. She watches the two men, biting on her bottom lip as Caspar cries out again.

“Oh, you’re really not gonna like it,” Linhardt replies, impassive. He administers the painkillers first, then starts to clean out the wound. Caspar whines as alcohol meets the open wound, and then the morphine takes effect and his eyes roll back in his skull.

It’s quiet without him. Too quiet.

Hubert picks up the shotgun dropped at the back of the armoury, lying it down next to Linhardt’s medical equipment. “We’ll be on our way, now,” he says. “The mission comes first. Should you need the gun, doctor--”

“I won’t take it.” Linhardt is adamant, but he doesn’t look up from his work. “I can’t stand killing--”

“Take the goddamn gun, Linhardt. You want to protect your patients, this is how you gotta do it.”

Caspar moans in his sleep, but still Linhardt doesn’t look away.

“Let me work. Go on without me,” he says.

“Look after him please,” Ferdinand starts, but it’s useless to say anything, and Linhardt dismisses him with a cold stare.

“I said _go._ ”

They move through the fort, picking off the mercenaries as they go. It all seems too easy, until Ferdinand’s fears are confirmed as he rounds a corner, only to be met with a hail of bullets. Edelgard grabs him by the back of his neck, pulling him back behind the building to safety.

Their way is blocked. Maybe ten men; not a lot, but enough. 

“Wonderful,” he says, reloading with shaking hands. “They set up a blockade.”

“We could be sneaking past?” Petra asks, but Hubert shakes his head. 

“They’d pick us off one by one. We’re trapped.”

Ferdinand goes to peek out from behind the building, but a bullet nearly takes off his arm and he snaps back against the wall. A sharp sting runs up his arm, and he pulls at the torn sleeve of his coat to inspect the damage. Barely more than a graze, but it was a warning alright. 

“I doubt we can get any further--” he starts, but he’s cut short by the least likely fighter of them all. 

“Hubie,” Dorothea says, “I’m gonna be a-needing one of those knives, now.”

Hubert scowls, reluctantly handing her one of his blades. She tests the weight of the metal in her hand, then tucks it into the sleeve of her dress. She readies herself for the fight to come, taking a deep breath in. Another. 

“Dorothea,” Ferdinand hisses in alarm. “What are you doing?”

“Trust me, Ferdie,” she whispers, gathering her skirts around her. “Just give me a hand when I need, yeah?”

“What in the world--”

She shrieks above the sound of gunfire. “Oh please, sir, don’t shoot!”

A shout from the other side of the barricade. “The fuck?”

And then another voice, commanding. “Hold your fire!”

Dorothea stands up with her hands raised above her head. She’s every inch the damsel in distress, from her red lips and terrified expression to the way her hands tremble with fear.

“Ma’am?” one of the men asks, sliding his gun back into his holster. Ferdinand peeks out from behind the cover, watching the exchange with his heart in his mouth. The mercenary looks at Dorothea the way every man does, like a hungry dog at a butcher’s shop.

She plays right into it. 

“Oh please, sir, you gotta help me,” she begs, eyes wide. She clutches the man’s hand. Her voice is high and panicked. “I’m just a local girl, sir, I work the saloon in San Adrestia. I came to stay the night with one a’ your boys, and then-- oh, and then there was an explosion and these awful men rode in and started a-shooting at me, and I lost my way in all the fighting.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am,” the man says, and she bats her eyelashes at him.

“It’s ‘miss’, actually. Miss Dorothea. You gotta look after me. I’m scared, real scared, sir. I need you and your boys to protect me.”

He finally capitulates, putting his arm over his shoulders and leading her back towards his men. “Come now, miss, I can look after you.”

Dorothea giggles, playing the man like a fiddle. “You’d do that?”

“Why, sure. Now why don’t you and me get outta here, huh?” 

His hand goes to her waist, and she laughs again. The other mercenaries are lowering their weapons, their attention on the new arrival and not the imminent threat just a few yards behind them.

It’s as good a time as any.

“Now!” Dorothea calls, kicking the man’s gun from its holster. He tries to fight back but she rolls his arm forward in his socket, then forces his elbow forward.

There’s a _snap,_ then a yell, and then the shots start to ring out. Ferdinand leaps from his cover, firing off one, two, three. The bodies fall like dominoes, Dorothea holding Hubert’s knife under the mercenary’s throat and using his body to shield her from the fighting. But the man throws his head back into her face with a _crunch,_ and Dorothea screams as the man reaches for her throat. A vicious kick to the stomach sends her sprawling to the ground. He stands over her, triumphant--

And then he’s thrown to the side with the impact of shot after shot after shot, Petra’s rifle and Ferdinand’s revolver and the glint of a marksman’s rifle from the lofty heights of the watchtower. Ferdinand looks up to the figure sat high out of reach. Bernadetta gives him a nervous wave, the all-clear that they’re good to go.

Hubert and Edelgard pick off any survivors as Ferdinand moves carefully to Dorothea’s side. Despite Bernadetta’s assurance, his right hand is still wrapped around his gun. 

Dorothea is winded, only semi-conscious. She’s lying on her side with her hair tangled and matted in the dust, and she struggles to get to her feet. Clear fluid runs from her nose. She spits a glob of saliva and blood into the dirt, swearing as her arms buckle and she drops back to the ground.

“I shall be returning her to Linhardt,” Petra decides, and nobody protests otherwise.

“I can still fight. I’m fine, I swear--” Dorothea insists, but her eyes are unfocussed, and she scowls against the early-morning light. 

“Take her,” Edelgard says. “We’ll carry on alone.”

It leaves just the three of them to walk along the road to the main building, white marble bathed in the purple glow of sunrise. They each reload as they approach. Ferdinand slides one round at a time into his revolver, ammunition quickly running out.

“Ready?” Edelgard asks, and they both nod in wordless agreement. “On my command.”

A gun in each first-floor window is quickly dealt with. Ferdinand kicks down the main door, firing blindly down the corridor. The first man goes down in a hail of bullets, the second meeting a similar fate. Someone tries to charge Edelgard from a room to the side, but he’s met with an axe to the face. 

They can’t stop to breathe. The three of them clear one room, then the next, emptying the corridors and leaving only corpses in their wake. A sniper on the stairs puts a bullet into the plaster an inch from Ferdinand’s head. Hubert puts a knife into the gunman’s throat. The body drops two floors to the ground below.

They don’t meet any opposition on the first floor, but the second is a different story altogether. By the time they’re done, they’re all dangerously low on ammunition, and with every exchange they get lower still. 

“How many are left, you reckon?” Ferdinand asks, reloading with the last of his rounds. Only five of the six chambers have a round inside.

“Too damn many,” Hubert replies. He hands his rifle to Edelgard; she’d lost her axe somewhere on the second floor, and her pistol was out of ammunition. She frowns, but she takes the gun regardless.

“Can’t afford to get complacent, now,” she warns. “Can’t let them--”

The gunshots start again. Three figures. Ferdinand deals with one, Edelgard with the other. But the third charges at her, shotgun out--

Hubert barges her to the side, shielding her body with his own. 

Edelgard screams as he slumps back against the wall. She fires the rifle point-blank into the mercenary’s chest, then kicks him back through a window. The man disappears in a flurry of shattered glass, hitting the ground below with a _crunch._

She gasps for breath, chest heaving. Ferdinand can only stand back and stare, part in awe, part in fear.

And at the bottom of the stairs, Hubert slides down the wall, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he goes.

“Ah,” he says quietly, almost disbelieving. And then: “Shit.”

Edelgard screams his name, ordering Ferdinand to cover for her. He does exactly that, taking out the last of Arundel’s men as they go for the attack. At this range, Ferdinand won’t miss, and there’s no faster trigger finger in the west. But after five shots his gun feels unnervingly light. 

He’s empty.

Behind him he can hear Edelgard calling Hubert’s name again, begging for him to stay awake. All Hubert can do in reply is take her head in his hands, touching his lips to her forehead.

“Go,” he murmurs. “Finish what you started.”

Edelgard can’t argue with that. She stands next to Ferdinand, her face twisted into a dark mask of anger and hatred. A bloody handprint paints her left cheek.

“I’m gonna kill him,” she says. She cocks Hubert’s rifle and storms up the final flight of stairs. Ferdinand goes to follow her, but a weak voice calls him back.

“Sheriff,” Hubert says. “Ferdinand. Look after her.”

Ferdinand nods. He can’t find a reply.

He turns back, following Edelgard up the stairs. He’s become numb to the gunshots, now, barely flinching as one rings out. Then a second, then a screech of pain and fury, and then the sound of a window shattering. Edelgard screams again, but only to cover her anguish.

That’s the last of Arundel’s men. It’s also the last of her ammunition.

They’re out of options.

Ferdinand runs into the corridor after her, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her away from the bodies around them. There’s a room at the end, lit up by a single, flickering gas lamp. A laugh sounds from inside the room, a sing-song voice.

“Come now, El. Don’t be shy.”

The sound of it makes Ferdinand sick to the stomach. But he swallows his fear, inching along the corridor with Edelgard at his side.

“I don’t have--” she starts, but he shakes his head.

“We fake it,” he says. “Follow my lead.”

He kicks the door to the room open, empty gun pointed at the man within.

Arundel is stood behind a desk, rifle in hand. He’s not a tall man, but even dressed in nothing more than nightclothes and an overcoat he seems to fill the room with his presence alone. Long hair is left loose around an unshaven face, his eyes like that of a coyote's. Something about him is familiar to Ferdinand, but he has no idea where he's seen the man before.

Edelgard bristles with anger at the sight, barely held in check. 

“Uncle,” she spits. “It’s a pleasure.”

He smiles at that, staring at Ferdinand in disdain. “And the boy?”

“My name is Ferdinand von Aegir,” he starts. “I believe you knew my father.” 

Arundel folds his hands on the desk in front of him. He looks Edelgard over, then Ferdinand. He’s still smiling, finger hovering on the trigger of his rifle. His voice is dismissive and dull. The sound of it makes Ferdinand’s blood run cold. 

“I’d rather not.”

Ferdinand scowls. “You do not have a choice. We are going back to San Adrestia, and you are coming with us.” He’s desperate, trying to hide the fear in his voice. He tilts his gun to the side, as if he’s packing a full six rounds and not an empty chamber. “Now stand up and face justice.”

“You’re bluffing.” The words send a shiver down Ferdinand’s spine. At his side, Edelgard goes pale, eyes widening in fear. He tightens his grip on his gun, but Arundel doesn’t seem intimidated at all. Lazily, he leans over his desk. His eyes never leave Edelgard’s troubled face. “Oh come now, El. I’ve known you since you were a baby.”

She raises the gun. Her voice is like steel. “Don’t force my hand.”

“You’re empty,” Arundel says, caressing the rifle in his hands. “Both of you. But go ahead, prove me wrong. Pull the trigger.”

Ferdinand’s hand shakes. At his side, Edelgard puts down her weapon. The two of them share a look, defeated.

Arundel laughs, pointing his rifle at Edelgard, then to Ferdinand, then back to Edelgard again. “Now, this begs the question: which one of you do I kill first?” Arundel cocks the weapon with a sharp _click-click._ He makes up his mind, training the gun on Ferdinand. “Aegir’s boy, I think. I never much liked the man. Send him my regards in hell--”

Ferdinand flinches as a blade rushes past his face. Wind caresses his hair, his vision suddenly enveloped in a flash of silver. By the time he’s looked up, there’s three inches of a familiar-looking blade embedded deep in Arundel’s forehead, the body slumped over the desk.

Edelgard lets out a shaky sigh. She looks to Ferdinand, relieved, but he hardly notices. Instead, he stares back down the corridor in shock. 

Hubert is slumped against the far wall, one hand clamped tight below his ribs, the other lying useless and palm-up on the floor. He lies at the end of a trail of blood that leads all the way down the stairs, past corpses and spent rounds and all manner of destruction.

“Tell me it’s done,” he says weakly. “Please, Ferdinand. Tell me it’s done.”

His head lolls forward.

“We have to get him to Linhardt,” Ferdinand says, trying to stifle the panic in his voice. But both he and Edelgard are remarkably calm as she helps him to haul Hubert’s body over his shoulders, slowly carrying him down the stairs and out into the open air. More than once, Ferdinand staggers under the weight, his hands slippery with blood. Hubert moans in pain occasionally, but other than that he’s deathly quiet, deathly still. 

There’s no-one else around in the early morning light, just more bodies than they could care to count, corpses slumped in doorways and sprawled in the dust. And as they finally make it back to the courtyard, Ferdinand lies one more body down on the ground, this one still clinging onto life.

The impact jolts Hubert back to consciousness, gritting his teeth and crying out in pain as Ferdinand unbuttons his shirt to expose the wound. This one is different to Caspar’s, a messy spatter of buckshot just below the ribs, not as deep but just as nasty. 

The black fabric is saturated with blood, covering every inch of skin it touches in a sheen of dark red. 

“Linhardt!” Ferdinand calls. Then again, louder than before. The others are here; Dorothea is sat up against a wall with Petra’s arm around her shoulder, Caspar is unconscious but breathing, and even Bernadetta has come down from her tower to congregate with the others. She points to the corner where a man is slumped against a wall, fast asleep.

Ferdinand swears, then goes to rouse Linhardt. He rests a hand on the doctor’s shoulder, gently shaking him awake. He comes around slowly, until Edelgard kicks him in the shins.

He gets up pretty sharpish after that.

Linhardt assesses Hubert’s rapidly-deteriorating condition in silence, then fetches his kit and rolls up his sleeves again. He scrubs his hands slowly, meticulously, staring at Hubert the whole time. 

“Isn’t he a wanted outlaw?” he says, and Edelgard replies with a glare that could punch a hole through an inch of steel. 

Ferdinand shakes his head. “Please, Linhardt. I owe Hubert my life. Just save him.”

The doctor sighs, pushes his glasses up his nose, then mutters something about how ‘blood should stay _inside_ the body, thank you very much’ before getting to work in silence. 

Ferdinand kneels in the dust at the outlaw’s side. Hubert reaches for Edelgard’s hand, looking up into her eyes and squeezing her fingers. Then he picks Ferdinand’s hand in his left, holding them both so tight it hurts. He glances down at the bloody mess that used to be his stomach, then drops his head back into the dust.

“Lady Edelgard,” he whispers. He’s trying to keep the pain from his voice, but it isn’t working. “You are unharmed?”

“I’m alright, Hubert. Nothing I can’t walk off--”

“Morphine,” Linhardt interrupts. Edelgard and Ferdinand back away for a moment to let the doctor work his magic. A quiet whimper of pain escapes the back of Hubert’s throat, and Ferdinand looks away, trying to grant the man a little dignity.

Still he doesn’t let go of Hubert’s hand.

“Edelgard,” he says again. “I’m sorry I failed you--”

“Hush now, Hubert. You’ve done nothing of the sort.” There are tears welling in her eyes, but she doesn’t let them fall, not yet.

“And now it’s over--”

His voice breaks. 

Edelgard brings his hand up to her face, pressing a kiss into his fingers. For all she tries to hide it, her eyes betray the feeling within.

The words catch in her throat as she tries to speak. Nothing comes out. The only thing they can do is sit back and watch Linhardt work, the young doctor trying everything in his arsenal and getting ever-more desperate as time passes. His hands are trembling violently, slippery and covered in blood all the way up to his elbows. That smart green suit of his is slowly turning red-black.

“If you got anything to say,” he says quietly, “you might want to say it now.” 

Edelgard nods as she looks anywhere but Hubert’s face, eventually finding the right words. “It might be over,” she murmurs, “but that don’t mean you didn’t do a fine job along the way.”

“Then I have fulfilled my duty,” Hubert replies, and Edelgard clutches his hand against her chest.

“You sure did,” she whispers. “You can finally rest--”

“No,” he replies. “No, I’m not finished. Not yet.” 

Just moving his head to the side looks harder than anything in the world, but eventually he locks eyes with Ferdinand, pale green and slowly losing focus. His top lip twitches in a regretful smile, blinking over and over to try and stay awake. 

“It sure beats the hangman’s noose,” he starts again, and Ferdinand nods in reply. 

His heart constricts. “That it does.”

Hubert’s eyes start to close. It’s getting ever-harder to keep them open. Perhaps it’s the morphine. Perhaps it’s his injuries. Either way, he’s weakening by the second, and Ferdinand can’t swallow down the grief rising in his chest. 

He should have said something. He should have _done_ something, anything, whatever it took. The realisation comes all at once, sudden and powerful and overwhelming. 

And now it’s too late.

Hubert’s voice is full of regret. “Thank you, Ferdinand. For everything.” 

Ferdinand’s throat is tight with feeling, the words impossible to speak. Still he nods his head, clutching Hubert’s hand like a lifeline. “It has been a pleasure.”

The grip on his hand starts to loosen, palms clammy with sweat. Glazed eyes stare at the heavens above, the sunrise filling the morning sky with flames of orange and salmon-pink. 

The dawn breaks around them.

“I think I’m going to sleep, now,” Hubert breathes. “Thank God I did my duty.”

His eyes flutter, then slide shut.

It’s only that Edelgard finally lets the tears run down her face, curling up over his chest and quietly keening from behind gritted teeth. Ferdinand can only sit back in shock, staring at closed eyes and cold lips that mere hours ago were pressed against his own. Somewhere at his side Linhardt is calling for help, still struggling on as he tries to save the man in his care.

Hubert’s grip on Ferdinand’s hand weakens, then falls away.

And finally, the sun rises over the clouds.

~.*.~

Like adventures often do, the whole affair began in a saloon. And now, it seems, this is where it all draws to an end.

They sit around a table together, seven seats filled, the eighth empty. A fortnight had passed since their assault on Fort Merceus, a fourteen days of injuries and recoveries and funerals. Despite the raucous Saturday night crowd around them, a sense of loss hangs over the party, the finite inevitability of lives tangled together now heading off in different directions once again.

Edelgard wears a sombre expression, suddenly at a loose end after years of focussed purpose. Petra sits awkwardly on her chair, not quite knowing what to say. Ferdinand just stares at his drink.

Footsteps approach from behind, accompanied by a dull, dry voice. 

“You sure I can’t get you another drink, sheriff?”

He turns around in his chair, watching Hubert as he brings another round of drinks to the table, four glasses balanced precariously in his hands. Ferdinand looks back at the single tumbler on the table in front of him. He’s still on his first drink -- he said he’d pace himself, tonight -- and even though he’s got barely a quarter of an inch left at the bottom of his glass, he doesn’t feel the need for another.

“You are putting quite enough on my tab, thank you,” he replies, and Hubert raises an eyebrow in surprise.

“Sure?”

“I reckon one drink will do me plenty tonight. But the offer is appreciated.”

“I’ll get you a soda, then,” he says, sliding the drinks over the table. Edelgard is on her second whiskey of the night. Caspar is on his fourth. Dorothea has had at least three and she’s quickly becoming giggly and affectionate, clinging onto Petra’s arm and staring in awe at the new set of braids in her hair. 

Bernadetta is still only a sip into her first glass, and refuses to drink any more.

“A toast,” Caspar says, shouting over the table. He’s rowdy and raucous, and nearly spills Linhardt’s drink as he gets to his feet. “A toast to new friends,” he announces, raising his glass. 

The others slowly rise out of their chairs, touching glasses with a series of _clinks._ Ferdinand drains the last of his glass, setting it down on the table when he’s done. 

They talk, for a while, playing cards around the table. Caspar puts his feet up on the back of Linhardt’s chair, claiming it alleviates the pressure on his still-healing gut wound. Linhardt has some stern words about that, but he’s surprisingly amicable with a few drinks in him, and he lets it slide. Petra ignores the few dirty looks sent her way from the patrons of the bar -- she only has eyes for Dorothea, slowly twisting a lock of hair into a braid like her own. 

Still, for all their lighthearted chatter, they all know this is the end.

It was their last night together, the last night of a grace period before Hubert and Edelgard became wanted fugitives once again, before Ferdinand became duty-bound to shoot them both on sight should they ever venture back to his town. The law would never let up, no matter how much he wanted it to; they would always be drawn apart, two men separated by a thin line in the sand.

“I need a moment,” Ferdinand says, excusing himself from the table and tucking his hand of cards face-down beneath his glass. Dorothea sends him an enquiring look, but he dismisses it with a wave. “Just need some fresh air,” he explains. “I will be back real soon.”

“We’re still playing, Ferdie. Stick or twist?”

“Fold.”

He gets to his feet, pushing the saloon doors open and letting the evening air wash over him. It’s not dark out yet, not even close, but the day is drawing to a close. He reaches into his pocket, pulling out the hip flask engraved with his initials and toying with its weight.

For the first time in a long while, it’s empty.

Ferdinand walks to the horses tied up outside the saloon. His old mare, Caspar’s scruffy-looking skewbald, Bernadetta’s pony, Petra’s wild mustang with its intricately-braided mane. But they aren’t what he’s looking for, no; he heads over to the horse at the end, huge and black and slightly wild in the eyes. The beast snorts and stamps its hooves, but it’s slowly getting used to him. It barely makes a noise as Ferdinand opens the panniers strapped to its back, slipping the hip flask inside. 

He wasn’t going to miss it.

“This stays a secret, do you understand?” he warns. Hubert’s horse just huffs in reply, and Ferdinand pats its neck as a form of farewell.

He heads back inside after that, but it isn’t long until the crew starts to go their separate ways. Bernadetta, first, her social capital exhausted all of a sudden. She makes her excuses and tries to slip out without a fuss, but before she can disappear Dorothea catches her with an affectionate hug and a drunken squeal of “Bernie bear!”. When Bernadetta finally pries herself free, she quietly bids the others goodnight, then disappears back to her room in the church tower.

Linhardt next, already half-asleep on the table, dragged back to his house by a rather inebriated Caspar. Petra announces that she has to return to her family, but that every one of them has free passage through Brigid lands should they ever need it. Dorothea sees her off with a kiss to the cheek, and Petra goes bright red beneath her tattoos. 

The two outlaws share a look once Dorothea has staggered up the stairs to her room above the bar. They've both worked out that it’s time to go, that they can’t afford to overstay their welcome.

Ferdinand follows them out, replacing his hat and pulling his overcoat back on. Edelgard is busying herself with her tack, but his attention isn’t on her.

“Where will you go?” he asks, stood on the deck out the front of the saloon. He leans his forearms against the set of wooden railings that separate them, watching as they prepare their horses for the journey to come. 

Hubert looks up from his horse. “Where Lady Edelgard decides,” he answers, “perhaps New Leicester, or Faerghus, wherever the wind takes us.”

Ferdinand frowns. “Is that wise? Every town in the state has a bounty on your head. If you ever return to San Adrestia, I will have to hunt you down and string you from the gallows.”

“Then we’ll have to meet outside San Adrestia, hm?”

That smile, lopsided and assured. Hubert approaches the railings and perches his arms on the balustrade next to Ferdinand’s. The deck adds maybe six inches to Ferdinand’s height, and he has to lean down to get on Hubert’s level.

They lock eyes. Then lips, a fierce, hungry kiss that consumes him with cold fire. He grasps Hubert’s head in his hands, tangling his fingers into dark hair and pressing their faces together like they can’t be close enough. 

But Ferdinand is suddenly aware of Edelgard’s stare on them. He pulls away and shakes his head, retreating back to where he was before. “You know I cannot do that.”

He looks up to the clock in the church tower. Half-past seven, and the minutes ticking away with every second he wastes.

Hubert follows his gaze, reaching the same conclusion. “We should have a good hour or two before nightfall. We’ll be long gone before you can even start the chase.”

“No,” Ferdinand counters. “It is getting late, and you will be slowed by your injury. You should depart tomorrow morning. One more day will not change anything.”

“Where would we stay?”

“I have a room.” It tumbles out before he can stop it, and he curses himself for being so forward.

Hubert is equally incredulous. “You would have me stay the night in your home?”

“I--” Ferdinand starts, but he cuts himself short. He finally finds the courage to say what he’s been waiting for, in all ways but literally. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I would. Unless you wish to sleep in a jail cell again?”

He gets a laugh at that, Hubert’s low chuckle sending a shiver running up his spine. “You’d really do that for me, sheriff?”

“Please do not remind me.” He puts a hand on Hubert’s arm, staring into pale green eyes. “Stay the night. I insist.”

It’s an invitation, and they both know what it means.

The next ten minutes pass in a blur. Walking back across town to the sheriff’s office, unlocking the door to his quarters. Ferdinand removing his hat and coat, then Hubert’s hands deftly dealing with his shirt. Sitting on the edge of his bed together, the old mattress creaking under the added weight.

And then kissing like the last men on earth, like this is the last time they’ll ever get to touch another.

Because, in a way, it is.

“You are still injured,” Ferdinand says, his hands on the bandages covering Hubert’s naked chest. 

Hubert tries to cut him off with the whisper of his lips below Ferdinand’s jaw, leaving tiny red marks behind. “I’m fine,” he murmurs, voice low and hoarse. “Nothing a couple of drinks can’t fix.”

But Ferdinand is insistent. “You need to heal. You said it yourself, whiskey is no substitute for rest and medicine. I do not want you pulling your stitches.”

“Then you’d best be gentle, hm?” Hubert eases off the bed and drops to his knees in front of Ferdinand. If the movement causes him any discomfort, Ferdinand doesn’t see it. Instead, Hubert leans up for a kiss to the lips, a passionate kiss full of yearning and desire. His fingers unlace Ferdinand’s trousers, starting at the waist and working down. His spare hand is pushed firmly against Ferdinand’s abdomen, just above the navel.

“You want me to go easy on you, Hubert?”

He grins, then licks his lips in anticipation. “If that makes you feel better.”

He takes Ferdinand in his mouth without another word, his wicked tongue even better in person. Ferdinand guides his head, a little unsure at first but slowly building, only letting up when his body aches with pleasure and Hubert has to cover his mouth to stop his cries from waking half the town. And when he tumbles back into the sheets, Hubert crawls atop him like a creature of the night, and the whole dance starts again.

It's well after dark by the time they're done, exhausted and shaking, bodies slick with sweat. Ferdinand's throat is dry, his ears ring, and his vision is full of bright patches, tiny stars exploding in front of his eyes. At his side Hubert is the same, his hands knotted in the sheets, body limp with the aftermath of it all. Ferdinand rolls over, resting his head against Hubert's chest. He can hear the heartbeat beneath, the sound like a Kentucky stallion at full gallop.

Neither of them speak. Neither of them need to.

Outside his window, the barrens stretch away into the distance, vast and empty.

Absentminded, Hubert winds a lock of Ferdinand’s hair around his finger. They lie there in the single bed, covers pushed to the side, bodies pressed together. Hubert wraps his arms around Ferdinand’s shoulders, warm to the touch and gently shifting as he breathes. Ferdinand can't imagine a life with Hubert in it, no matter how much he tries to see it so. They're bound to be torn from each other, and Ferdinand knows this is simply delaying the inevitable, making it that much harder when they finally have to part ways.

But maybe, just maybe, one more night won't hurt.

Hubert pulls the covers around them. He places his hand on Ferdinand's chest, just above the bullet scar, and Ferdinand props himself up on his forearms for just long enough to kiss Hubert again, far gentler this time. His hands are warm against Hubert's cheeks, their foreheads touching in a silent embrace.

No, one more night won't hurt anyone at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies, gents, sheriffs and outlaws, it's been a pleasure.
> 
> As always, any comments would be amazing -- if you've enjoyed it (or have concrit!) then please leave a few words below. Doesn't have to be a lot, just a :) would mean the world to me. I was always told it was the journey that matters, not the destination, so shoutout to the regular commenters for being there along the way.
> 
> Should you fancy getting a few more snapshots into the small town of San Adrestia, this might become part one of a series. You never know what dangers lurk on the horizon.
> 
> Stay safe, and goodnight.


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